
Book. . /i2 i Fr 

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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



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JUL 



An Oriental 
Land of the Free 

or 

Life and Mission Work Among 

the Laos of Siam, Burma, China 

and Indo-China 



By 

Rev. John H. Freeman 

Missionary of the Presbyterian Board of Foreign 
Missions at Chieng Maij Laos 



Philadelphia 

The Westminster Press 

1910 






Copyright, 1910 

By the Trustees of The Presbyterian Board of 

Publication and Sabbath-School Work 



Published May, 19 10 



©CIA265183 



AN ORIENTAL LAND OF THE FREE 



CONTENTS 

chapter page 

Introduction 9 

I. Who are the Laos ? 13 

11. Social Customs — Woman in the Home 22 
IIL The Yellow Robe and What It 

Brought to the Laos 31 

IV. Demon Worship and Witchcraft .... 42 

V. Arts and Industries 53 

VI. The Laos Year in Field and Harvest 65 

VII. The Face of the Land 80 

VIII. Trade and Travel 89 

IX. Government Past and. Present Among 

THE Laos 98 

X. The Coming of the Gospel 107 

XI. Touring and Teaching 124 

XII. Hospitals and Healing and How They 

Have Helped 138 

XIII. Schools, the Press and Christian 

Literature 151 

XIV. The Native Church 163 

XV. Opportunities, Outlook, Needs 173 

Questions for Study 179 

Appendix A — Appendix B 191 

Appendix C 194 

Index ^97 



EDITORIAL PREFACE 

Mr. Freeman's furlough expired before he was 
able to see the manuscript of this book through the 
press. Dr. J. W. McKean, of Chieng Mai, has ad- 
vised with the editor and has supplied the tables 
of distances between the Laos stations, and of the 
pronunciation of proper names. The only editorial 
changes worth mentioning have been a slight re- 
arrangement of the original order of the chapters, 
the insertion of subsequent information received 
from Mr. Freeman, which will be found at the end 
of Chapter I, and the substitution of a set of ques- 
tions on the text for the use of study classes. 

T- H, P. SAILER. 

March, 1910. 



INTRODUCTION 

The romance of missions among the Laos centers 
about two men, each of whom has given more than 
fifty years of active service to the cause of Christ 
in the Land of the White Elephant. Landing to- 
gether in Bangkok, June 20, 1858, after nine years 
of labor among the Siamese, both Daniel Mc- 
Gilvary and Jonathan Wilson heard and heeded 
the call to the north. After more than forty years 
of added service among the Laos, both are still 
actively engaged in the work they love. 

The history of the mission in its earlier years and 
on its evangelistic side is largely the life story of 
Dr. McGilvary. No one knows or can tell as he 
can, of the travels and perils, the difficulties and 
discouragements, the blessings and successes, of 
those early years at the most distant outpost of the 
Presbyterian Church. At the request of the board 
and of the mission, he is now preparing that story 
for publication. We hope that it may introduce to 
every Presbyterian home, and to many others, a 
veteran little known as yet to the church, who has 
laid wide and deep the foundations of the Christian 
church and of Christian civilization in a land larger 
than all our original " thirteen colonies," among a 
people worthy of the best efiforts the church can put 
forth. 



10 



Introduction 



It IS not the wish of the writer to forestall in 
any way that story. He rather seeks to answer 
for a larger audience a few of the questions 
that constantly have been asked of him as he told 
the story of the work of the kingdom in that far- 
away land. Who are the Laos? Where do they 
live? What is their religion? How do they make 
a living? What do they eat? What of their 
language, homes, schools? What special helps and 
hindrances does the missionary find in presenting 
the gospel to the Laos people? By picture, as well 
as by pen, he hopes to answer these questions re- 
garding a people he has grown not only to respect 
but to love, for their physical prowess and mechan- 
ical skill ; for their courtesy, kindness and openness 
of mind; for moral qualities that make them morally 
the peers of any race in Asia: our brothers for 
whom Christ died. 

The writer hopes, above all, so to present the 
facts that the reader will be enabled to appreciate 
a people less known to the world than any that com- 
pares with them in numbers and in character, and 
to estimate fairly the responsibility that rests upon 
the Presbyterian Church in the United States of 
America for the evangelization of this great and 
growing people. 

This little book is intended primarily for study 
classes and for reference, but it is hoped that the 
facts have been so presented as to commend it also 
to a larger public who are interested rather in 
strange people and lands than in mission work. 



Introduction 1 1 

May this book interest some such readers m the 
greatest undertaking of the world of to-day. 

The author wishes to express his obligation to 
James W. McKean, M. D., of Chieng Mai for 
material used in several chapters. Direct quotation 
has been acknowledged in each case, but several 
brief passages have been given in substance where 
quotation marks could not be used. Dr. McKean 
has also kindly consented to read proof, since the 
expiration of his furlough calls the writer back to 
his distant field. 

For many illustrations, the writer is indebted to 
W. A. Briggs, M. D., of Chieng Rai, but he has 
been unable to ascertain the source of all the others. 
One is the work of Rev. W. F. Shields, another is 
probably the work of Mrs. Curtis, whose " The 
Laos of North Siam " has once been quoted and 
repeatedly referred to in these pages. Her book, 
which is published by the Presbyterian Board of 
Publication, gives the only connected account now 
available of life among the Laos. The only other 
book to which reference need be made is *' A 
Thousand Miles on an Elephant in the Shan 
States " by Holt Hallett. Chapters in some books 
on Siam are devoted to the Laos people, but aside 
from these two books, only a few leaflets and the 
pages of the " Woman's Work " and of the '* As- 
sembly Plerald," and " Missionary Review," es- 
pecially for May, 1909, can be referred to as giv- 
ing recent and full information regarding the Laos 
people or the work among them. 



An Oriental Land of the Free 



CHAPTER I 

WHO ARE THE LAOS? 

Siam and Laos have for many years been associ- 
ated in the thoughts and gifts of the Presbyterian 
Church, but few even of those who read our mission 
publications, and contribute to work there carried 
on, understand clearly what and where " Laos " is. 
Fewer still have any real conception of the oppor- 
tunity open to us as a church in that far-away 
land, or of the responsibility that rests upon us for 
the evangelization of a great and growing people. 
Laos is the name of a people, not of a political 
division. Poland once found its place on every 
map of Europe; to-day it cannot be found there, 
for the Poles are subjects of three powers, Russia, 
Prussia and Austria. So the Laos are subjects, 
not of Siam alone, but of France in Indo-China, of 
England, in the Shan States, of Burma, and of 
China in all her southern provinces. 

The Tai Race '^^^ thousand years ago the 
. ^, . Chinese occupied only the central 

m Ciiina r t • ^ i . ^ * 

part of what is now Chma. South 

of the Yangtse was the home of another race who 

called themselves Tai, or " The Free." About 250 

B. C, the Chinese pushed southward across the 



14 An Oriental Land of the Free 

Yangtse and precipitated a conflict with the Tai 
race that continued for five hundred years; in a 
sense it still continues, for recent troubles in South 
China are at bottom a race conflict. Details of 
these wars fill many volumes of the Chinese annals. 
Th T • ^^ ^^^ concerned only with the re- 
^. . suit — the gradual movement of the Tai 

race southward and westward, till 
they reached the Bay of Bengal on the west and 
the Gulf of Siam on the south, and occupied the 
whole heart of the peninsula of Indo-China. 
Scattered aboriginal tribes, allied to the Tibetans, 
withdrew to the mountains, leaving to the Tai race 
the valleys and fertile plains that are still their 
home. These aborigines are now known as " the 
Hill Tribes '' of Indo-China and Burma. 

^, ^ . - - It must not be thought that the 

1 ne i ai JLeit - - r . i rr^ • -i • 

Ts , . J whole of the iai race was driven 

Behmd r ^i . a i i i 

. p, . out of Chma. A part was absorbed 

into the mass of the Chinese race, so 
that the Cantonese of to-day differ from the typical 
Chinese largely by an admixture of Tai blood and 
language. Non-Chinese people, many millions in 
all, are also found in all the southern provinces of 
China. Many — perhaps most — of these belong to 
the Tai race. Still the Tai migration was a great 
race movement, and its advance may well be com- 
pared to that of ah army. 
— , The left wing of this army of migration, 

c,. moving southward parallel with the 

Siamese ^-i . r- . • i i 

Chmese Sea, came m contact with the 



Who Are the Laos? 15 

Cambodians, who already possessed a civilization 
and a written language derived from India. Meet- 
ing and mingling with the Cambodians and Ma- 
lays, later with the Chinese immigrants who came, 
(and are still coming) by sea, the left wing of the 
Tai army became the Siamese of to-day. Although 
mixed in blood and language, they still call them- 
selves Tai. They occupy most of the southern half 
of the kingdom of Siam. 

«,- The right wing, moving westward in- 

-^ stead of south, that is, across the valleys 

^, of the Cambodia and Salween rivers, 

came in contact with the Burmese. Al- 
though their language was less modified than that 
of the Siamese, it is still quite distinct from typical 
Tai, and written in a different character. Their 
neighbors call them " Gnee-o," but English writers 
call all the race " Shans " and this branch of them 
'' Western Shans.^' They give name to the so- 
called " Shan States '' of Burma. 
^, The center or main body of the Tai migra- 
^ tion came in contact with no other great race, 

and were profoundly modified by only one 
outside influence, that of the missionaries of 
Buddhism. They remain to-day practically un- 
mixed in blood and unmixed in language, save 
for religious and polite terms derived from Pali, 
the sacred language of Buddhism. Although they 
call themselves Tai or '' The Free," and are better 
entitled to that name than the Siamese and West- 
ern Shans, we prefer to use the name applied to 



1 6 An Oriental Land of the Free 

them by the Siamese and French, and anglicized as 
Laos. Laos is really the name of one tribe and 
that not the largest, but it seems the most dis- 
tinctive term to include those, and only those, 
whose vernacular and written character is the same 
as that in use in Chieng Mai, the largest city and, 
so to speak, the capital of the Laos. 
Th F t f Although they were formerly divided 
r into tribes whose descendants retain 

• - some pecularities of dress and speech, 

and are found under the jurisdiction 
of four different governments, — Siam, Burma, 
China and French Indo-China — over an area as 
large as all France and Germany combined, they 
are one people. From southeast to northwest, fol- 
lowing the general course of the Mekong or Cam- 
bodia River, one may travel a thousand miles in a 
straight line without reaching the limits of the Laos 
people. From the Salween on the west, almost to 
the China Sea on the east, throughout the northern 
half of Siam, on across the Shan States of Burma, 
and at least two hundred miles farther into the 
Yunnan province, China, the spoken language dif- 
fers less than the English of Cornwall or Yorkshire 
differs from that of London. 

Th wn Isolated " hill tribes,'* each with its own 
_, ., language and customs, are found in 

many parts of this area, but they are 
islands in a sea; their only means of communica- 
tion with each other and with the people of the 
plains is the Laos language, the '^ lingua franca'' 



Who Are the Laos? 17 

of them all. This, then, is the language through 

which this whole vast area must be won for Christ. 

-- , - No reliable census of the Laos people 

Population . . - ^ - - . . 

m either of the four countries m 

which they are found has ever been made. Most 
so-called census enumerations aim to determine the 
number of adult males subject to poll tax; women 
and children are scarcely counted. The most re- 
liable estimates give the Laos population of Siam 
as something over three million. French Indo- 
China and the Shan States of Burma are largely 
Laos, but more sparsely settled than Siam. Prob- 
ably two millions is a conservative estimate of the 
Laos population in French and British territory. 
The people of the " Sip Song Punna " (Twelve 
States) in southern Yunnan are distinctly Laos, and 
northward and westward nearly to Tali-fu and 
Yunnan-fu, the language differs little, if at all, from 
typical Laos. Eastward and southward along the 
border of China and Tonquin are several million 
non-Chinese people, most of them probably Tai. 
We have little definite ^ knowledge of them. These 
" Maotze " and other tribes like the Loi people of 
the island of Hainan, may differ somewhat widely 
from the Laos. Counting only the Tai people of 
Yunnan, not those farther east and south, the Laos 
in China may number two millions, and the total of 
all the Laos may be anywhere from six to ten mil- 
lions.^ At least ten times as numerous as the Shans, 

1 The information received from Mr. Freeman which is 
given at the close of this chapter would seem to indicate that 



1 8 An Oriental Land of the Free 

two or three times as many as the Siamese, the 
Laos constitute the great body of the Tai race. In 
area of land occupied they are the first among the 
people of Indo-China; in numbers second only to 
the Annamites. 

Anticipating what will be presented more at 
length further on, permit the writer to answer in 
a few words the question, " Why should the Pres- 
byterian Church pray and labor especially for the 
Laos people ?'' 

First. It is a great field. This requires no 
further word to one who has read the preceding 
pages. 

Second. It is our field in a sense that can be said 
of hardly any other great field where our board is 
at work. Fruitful as has been the missionary 
work done by our representatives in Canton, China, 
we share the work and responsibility there with at 
least four other churches. In Korea, Presbyterians 
in the United States and in Australia, Northern and 
Southern Methodists, and a few Anglicans, share 
with us the responsibility and the blessing. Even 
in Siam, often spoken of as our field, the Baptists 
have a small work for the Chinese and the Disciples 
have opened a station in recent years. Work for 
the Laos people is wholly our own. A single 

the Tai race are more numerous in the north than he had 
at first supposed. It would appear to be safe to increase the 
estimate of the total population of the Laos given in the text 
by at least a million. The Laos probably number from seven 
to eleven millions. 



Who Are the Laos? i9 

station of the French Presbyterians in French ter- 
ritory where the French Government at present 
does not permit us to work, and four hundred miles 
from our nearest station, is the only exception. 
The Laos are peculiarly our field. 

Third. The Laos are physically vigorous, and 
rapidly increasing in numbers, and are morally 
peers of any race in the non-Christian world. 

Fourth. Successes already won encourage us to 
look for still greater fruit in the future. Buddhist 
peoples are justly regarded as peculiarly difficult to 
reach with the gospel. The small numbers en- 
rolled in Christian churches among the Burmese, 
the Ceylonese, the Siamese, after eighty to one 
hundred years of missionary effort, bear witness to 
this fact. While the gospel has had no such 
marvelous success among the Laos as in Korea or 
the Philippines, we find among them the largest 
Christian church that has grown up anywhere 
among the Southern Buddhists. 

Fifth. It is a field just now peculiarly open to 
the gospel. It is a time of transition ; never before 
were the minds of the village and district officials 
(higher officers are mostly Siamese and com- 
paratively indifferent to religious things), so full 
of inquiry regarding the ways and religion of the 
West. In almost every village, in almost every 
home, the missionary and his message are welcome. 
The railroad is nearing us, the bicycle and automo- 
bile are often seen ; the rush of modern life, absorp- 
tion in material things will within ten years render 



20 An Oriental Land of the Free 

many of these people more difficult to reach with 
the gospel. Now is the day of opportunity. 

Sixth. It is emphatically a needy field. In a 
land less densely populated than India or China, the 
individual missionary can come in touch with only 
a smaller number. Yet, counting only that part of 
our field within measurable reach of our present 
stations, each missionary, clerical or medical, has 
about him a parish of at least one hundred and fifty 
thousand souls. Beyond the limits touched in any 
way by our present work, yet one in blood, in lan- 
guage, in customs, with the Laos of Siam, and equal 
in population, lie the vast, unoccupied fields of 
French and Chinese Laos. 

" Is the Presbyterian Church planning for any- 
thing less than the conquest of the whole Laos 
people for Christ?" 



Since finishing the manuscript of this book, the author has 
made a journey from Haiphong, in Tonking, to Mengtse, in 
Yunnan province in China. Returning to Hanoi, he turned 
northwards and crossed the Chinese border again to Lung^ 
chow, Kwangsi, and from here traveled down the river, via 
Nanning and Wu-chow, to Hongkong. Writing from Lung- 
chow, he says that the nearest mission station to the north 
is Tu-shan-chow, in Kweichow, two hundred and fifty miles 
distant; to the east, Nanning-fu is one hundred miles in a 
direct line, or two hundred and fifty miles by the river; due 
west, the nearest station is Bhamo, seven hundred miles away, 
although to the northwest there is a station three hundred 
and fifty miles distant; to the south and west, no Protestant 
work is found nearer than the Presbyterian station of Chieng 
Rai, nearly seven hundred miles in a direct line. In this 



Who Are the Laos? 21 

vast area he estimates that there are at least fifteen million 
people, over five million of whom are of the Tai race. Mr. 
Freeman writes that he was able to converse with these 
people with little difficulty, readily understanding five sixths 
of their words. Of a vocabulary of four hundred words 
which he gathered on both sides of the Chinese frontier, 
only sixty-seven, or one in six, differed essentially from the 
common speech of Chieng Mai, a thousand miles away. There 
were also slight differences in pronunciation and tone, but 
the people would soon exclaim, '* Why, he speaks Tai." In 
one village which he visited, the elders gathered and with 
great cordiality helped him compare their speech with that of 
Chieng Mai. The vocabulary differed most in religious terms, 
since the people are not Buddhists. 

He closes his letter with this statement of the things ac- 
complished by the journey: 

" First. I have succeeded in determining, as no missionary 
or other traveler has done before, the extent and limits of 
Tai population and speech. Second, I have found that the 
Tai people of Tonking, described by French writers who 
could not speak their language but saw the obvious differences 
of dress, differ less widely in speech than I expected. In 
fact, clear over into Kwangtung and Kweichow provinces 
they are really our people. Third. I have helped to form a 
bond of Christian fellowship between the churches of Laos 
and in Kwangsi [where he found churches of Tai blood]. 
Distant a thousand miles, they are yet kindred in blood as 
well as in faith. Fourth, I have seen ways in which I hope 
our own church can immediately and practically help to make 
a beginning in reaching these brethren of our Laos people 
with the gospel. I sincerely hope some Laos missionary can 
come for a year to study the problem and the people more 
fully than I could do in this hurried journey. He may be 
able in a year of exploration to help missionaries on the field 
in Kwangsi to acquire the language of this people, for whom 
as yet not a single Protestant missionary is definitely at 
work." 



CHAPTER II 

SOCIAL CUSTOMS — WOMAN IN THE HOME 

. , The complexion, physique and 

T TV/, , industries of the Laos are not 

Laos Malay ,., , ^ , ^.,. , - 

,-. 1. ^ unlike those of the Filipinos and 

or Mongolian? ^i , n 4. ^ 

other peoples usually accounted 

Malays; their history and geographical position 
show close association with the Chinese, and their 
language, consisting of unchangeable monosyllables, 
with a highly developed tonal system found outside 
the Tai race only in China, argues still more defi- 
nitely for a Mongolian origin. On the other hand, 
the absence of high cheek bones, almond eyes and 
the peculiar complexion popularly considered char- 
acteristic of the " Yellow Race," has led some 
students of ethnography to deny that the Laos are 
Mongolian and even to argue that they are Caucas- 
ian. The racial relations of the Laos are puzzling, 
but the conviction is growing, that the entire Tai 
race is Mongolian. 
_, . p But whatever may be the racial re- 

T - . lations of the Laos, their social cus- 

Inheritance ^ • n ^i. v r 

toms, especially the position of 

women, set them apart for any of their neigh- 
bors. Nowhere in Asia, rarely elsewhere, does 
w^oman occupy the high place in the home, and 

22 



I 







Buddhist Monks 



Social Customs — Woman in the Home 23 

enjoy such entire equality with man before the 
law, as is accorded to her among the Laos. The 
Siamese are of kindred blood, but association with 
other races has modified the position of woman so 
that she is not the peer of man and the queen of the 
home among them, as she certainly is among the 
Laos. This unique position of woman, and the 
high moral standards that accompany it, cannot be 
attributed to Buddhism or to any outside influence; 
they are a part of the racial inheritance of the Laos 
people. 

T A Laos house consists usually of a 

P , . single " Roof," somewhat more than 

^ half of which is inclosed by walls. 
Into the inclosed part, the sleeping apartment of 
the family, the stranger is not invited. The balance, 
which is inclosed on only two sides, is the living 
room of the house. Here the family eats and re- 
ceives guests. On moonlight evenings fathers and 
mothers who have marriageable daughters retire 
early, leaving this porch or living room to the 
young folks. The wall between is thin, usually 
wickerwork woven of bamboo splints, so that those 
within can readily hear, even see, if they wish, what 
goes on. Still the young girl is left largely on her 
honor, as are American girls in similar circum- 
stances. 

or J A woman is guarded, however, by 

Safeguards ^ 111 / 

r p custom even more than by the watch- 

fulness of friends. Custom forbids 
the lover to touch so much as the hand of his mis- 



24 An Oriental Land of the Free 

tress, or of any woman. In visiting her, unless he 
takes a friend with him, he places himself wholly 
in her power. If she says that in any way he has 
overstepped the proprieties, no court will listen to 
his denial. It is assumed that he has offended 
against the spirits of the household in which he 
visited, and must pay a fine, the amount of which 
is determined by custom, to the family of which the 
girl is a member. It is easy to see how the girl 
may, and does, abuse this power, but a girl who is 
known to have done so has few visitors. 
^ . The parents may arrange a match for 

r^ . son or daughter, but the final decision 

rests with the girl herself. Not infre- 
quently the young people have their way despite 
opposition from the parents on one or both sides. 
Wedding customs differ widely. Among the 
poorer people there is often no ceremony and no 
written contract. The bridegroom simply goes to 
the home of the bride, and, by becoming a member 
of his wife's family, ceases to have part or inherit- 
ance in his father's family. The inheritance 
usually, though not necessarily, goes to the 
daughters and unmarried sons, that is, to those who 
are resident with the parents at the time of their 
death. Where either or both parties to the marriage 
have property, a written legal contract is made, 
and as a rule there are ceremonies in which the 
guardian spirits of both households are supposed 
to take part. So sensitive to ridicule are the con- 
tracting parties, however, that the contract is 



Social Customs — Woman in the Home 25 

drawn up by the legal representative of each, and 
the bridegroorn usually disappears immediately 
after the contract has been signed, and is not seen 
again at the home of the bride for several days. 
Then the timid husband quietly slips in v^ithout re- 
mark, and takes up his duties under the critical eyes 
of his father-in-law and mother-in-law. 

T, ^ As in western lands, it is not at all un- 
knots ,, .' 

-T ^. - common to marry m haste and repent at 
Untied - . „ rpt, ^.^, • 1 

leisure. Ihe motner-m-Iaw may con- 
ceive a violent dislike to her new son-in-law and tell 
her daughter to send him packing. The young 
wife herself may find him lazy or disagreeable, or 
in a fit of anger she may bundle up his clothes and 
throw them out of doors. In either case the young 
man usually stands not on the order of his going. 
With scarcely more ceremony, he too, may, if he 
chooses, leave his wife and return to his father's 
roof. The parents may — often they do — induce the 
young couple to make up their quarrel, and where 
property is involved, one or more conferences be- 
tween the heads of both households is necessary 
before the separation is complete. Such matters 
do not often come into the courts. 
^. Easy as divorce may seem to be, 

Vi TP ^^^ loosely as the marriage knot 

^, ^ ^ may seem to be fastened in the 

Not Common , r i-r .. ..u j- 

early years 01 lite together, divorce 

is not common in later years, and especially after 
children have been born, unless it be for " statutory 
cause,'' which there, as here, is held to dissolve the 



26 An Oriental Land of the Free 

marriage bond. The injured party may condone 
the fault, but adultery and polygamy are con- 
demned and forbidden in every form by Laos cus- 
tom and public opinion. The customs of the 
Siamese differ radically in these respects from those 
of the Laos. As Siamese rule and influence have 
increased in the north, some of the princes and of 
the official class have taken more than one wife. 
Siamese law also gives to the husband a license 
wholly foreign to the purer customs of the Laos. 

-^ . , One cause of divorce not uncommon 

Famme and , . , . , 

^. deserves mention, because it shows 

in a curious way the difference be- 
tween the point of view of the Laos and our own. 
Rice is almost the only food of the people. A 
failure of the rice crop, whether due to drought or 
flood, means suffering, if not famine, in the region 
affected by it. Rice may be plenty and cheap forty 
miles away across the mountains, but the utter lack 
of roads or good transport facilities makes the 
suffering acute in the valleys where rice has failed. 
The father of a family may find that the supply of 
rice is sufficient to tide wife and children and the 
wife's parents over until another season, but it is 
not enough for him also. With the wife's consent 
he goes across the mountains to seek work and 
food. He may find both on condition that he marry 
the daughter of his employer; or for some other 
reason he may marry there and never return. Does 
this involve hardship to the wife and children he 
has left behind? Not necessarily. It must be re- 




Laos Women and Children 
In Chinese Territory 




^tll. 







Laos Women and Children, Chieng xMai 



Social Customs — Woman in the Home 27 

membered that house and farm, cattle and chickens, 

all he possessed, has been left with the wife. 

-^ ^ The children are not a burden on the 
Jrarents 

J mother. At five or six years of age they 

rh'lrl carry about and amuse a younger 

brother or sister, help with the wood and 
water, run errands, and a little later watch the 
buffaloes and the cattle. The cotton for their 
scanty clothing is grown, carded, spun and woven 
with their help in the home. Nearly all they eat is 
grown in their own field, or garden, or found in the 
forest. It must not be supposed, however, that the 
children lack time for merry play, or that their 
work is constant or beyond their strength. 
-,- If a young woman is left a widow with 

j^ .- small children, this is no bar to remarriage ; 
T^ , on the whole, children are regarded as an 
asset rather than a liability in the land of 
the Laos. It is a very strong bond which unites 
parents and children to each other and to the home. 
Only under most exceptional circumstances, such as 
famine, does the father leave his wife and children. 
" Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home,'' 
is certainly the sentiment of the Laos. One feature 
of the home life must not be forgotten. Near the 
stairs by which one goes up into the house, stands 
a jar of water and a cocoanut shell dipper. Bare 
feet are the rule, but if sandals are worn they are 
removed, and the feet are washed at the jar before 
entering the house. When the lusty cry of the new- 
born child is heard, presently the grandmother or 



28 An Oriental Land of the Free 

some other elderly woman appears and seats her- 
self beside the water jar with the child cradled be- 
tween her outstretched bare feet. With the cocoa- 
nut dipper in her left hand she dashes cold water 
over the squirming, squealing child, and with her 
right scrubs it more or less vigorously. Soap is 
not always used, for soap is a luxury w^hich many 
cannot afiford, so that the missionary has learned 
that a cake of soap is a most acceptable present. 
The habit of a dailv cold bath thus besfun at birth 
keeps a beautiful, soft glow on the skin of the aver- 
age Laos man or woman. Whoever among them 
fails to have his daily bath is uncomfortable. In 
person and in dress the Laos are a cleanly race. 

T^ , ^ The fact that daughters bring their 

Daughters , , , .. . . . , 

husbands to live with and so watch 

over the declining years of father and mother, 
makes the advent of a girl in the house peculiarly 
welcome. More than once a father and mother 
with several stalwart sons have bewailed to me the 
fact that no daughters have come to bless their 
home. In such a case one of the sons usually in- 
duces his bride to leave her own home and become 
a daughter to his father and mother, but such an 
arrangement is contrary to custom (all-powerful 
among the Laos), difficult for the young woman, 
and often impracticable, if not impossible. 
--- While the wife and mother goes to the 

. , early market to sell her produce and buy 

„ her supplies, the husband and children get 

the breakfast and attend to the babies. 



Social Customs — Woman in the Home 29 

Other duties in the home are lighter than in a 
colder clime. Women, therefore, find time for not 
a little work out of doors, although the heavier 
work is always done by the men. The men dig the 
irrigation ditches, build the dams, plow and harrow 
the fields. When the land is ready, the wife and 
children aid in the planting and, later, in the har- 
vest. The lighter work of the garden near the 
house falls also to the wife and children, and as the 
garden is made in the dry season, the task of water- 
ing and caring for it is not small. 

As three fourths of the country is too wild and 
mountainous ever to be cultivated, and the fertile 
valleys are usually narrow, the forest is within 
reach of most villages. Roots and herbs, mush- 
rooms and bamboo shoots found in these forests, 
frogs and small fish from the streams and ponds, 
form no small part of the "' relish " (" kahp," or 
" with '' is the native word) eaten with rice. 
Trips to the forest to gather these are a sort of 
holiday enjoyed and shared in by all the family. 
-. If husband and wife, with or without the 

- children, make a journey together, you 

•^ will often see the wife carrying some of 

the products of her garden or loom for sale, or food 
and other necessities for the journey, the husband 
striding by her side with little load save his sword 
and gun. I think this is a reminiscence of a time, 
not long past, when the men of the party were of 
necessity free from burdens that they might be on 
the alert to protect the company from savage beasts 



30 An Oriental Land of the Free 

and more savage men. Along the more frequented 

roads and in densely populated regions, especially 

if there is anything really heavy to be carried, the 

man usually takes his share of the burden. 

--- The wom.en rarelv share in the lonsrer 

Women ,. ,. . ' , , ^ - 

J tradmg expeditions that make many of 

rr, J the men familiar with the roads for hun- 

Trade ,,..,. ,. . . 

areas ot miles m every direction Irom 

their homes, but the local trade is almost wholly in 

their hands. Three fourths of the attendants at 

the daily markets, both buyers and sellers, are 

women. 'Most women add not a little to the family 

income in this way, or by trade in their own homes. 

The wife is usually the treasurer of the home, and 

the husband is expected to place his earnings in her 

hands. 

Qln a word, instead of the seclusion or sub- 
ueen 
- . serviencv that is the lot of woman in most 
of the .\ . , ^ 

-J parts ot Asia, the Laos wile, quite as much 

as her husband, is the head of the house- 
hold. Neither the husband nor the wife is expected 
to enter upon any important business alone. They 
share the work, the responsibility, the rewards of 
their labor. The whole atmosphere of a Laos home 
is on a plane distinctly higher than we find in any 
other non-Christian land, so far as I am aware. In 
that home woman is the queen. 



CHAPTER III 

THE YELLOW ROBE AND WHAT IT BROUGHT TO THE 

LAOS 

— , As one goes in the early morning along 

-^ . the street of any Laos city or village, he 

T5 ^ is sure to meet yellow-robed figures with 

shaven heads. Each carries the " beg- 
ging bowl '' and the fan, characteristic possessions 
of the Buddhist monk. With the fan he covers his 
face while he receives gifts of steaming rice at each 
door and mutters the Buddhist formula of bless- 
ing. The wealthier households also send a child or 
dependent to the monastery loaded with hot food 
for " the order." In this way every household con- 
tributes at least a handful of steaming rice each 
morning to the support of the monks, and in num- 
berless other ways the rites and observances of 
which the " Yellow Robe " is the type, touch the 
daily life and thought of the Laos people. 
Th VJ f About the " wat," which is at once 

monastery, temple and school, centers 
^ . the life of the village, of the city, of the 

whole land. There is the " sala " or 
rest house where the traveler finds a stopping 
place ; in the " sala,'' or even in the temple itself, 
the itinerant trader opens and displays his wares; 
all the festivals and merrymakings, the social and 

31 



32 An Oriental Land of the Free 

political, as well as the religious life of the village, 
there have their homes. It is fair to study first 
this center of much that appeals to the deepest feel- 
ings of the Laos people, and to ask what the Yellow 
Robe has brought to the Laos. 

rp. p . I have already said that, unlike the 

c . , Siamese and Western Shans, the 

.-. -, -, - Laos people came in contact with 

Yellow Robe .1 . . .1 

no other great race m the course 

of their migration, and were profoundly affected by 
only one outside influence, that of Buddhism. In 
Ceylon, Buddhism had retained something of the 
moral earnestness and missionary spirit that marked 
its founder. About A. D., 500, a Buddhist revival, 
begun there, carried the Yellow Robe to Burma 
and, a little later, to the Laos and Siamese. What 
did its missionaries bring to this people? 
_, - First. They found the Laos without a 

. - , , written character. With no little in- 

genuity and patience they adapted the 
somewhat meager alphabet of Pali, the language 
of their sacred books, to express the forty-five con- 
sonants and forty-four vowels of the Laos tongue, 
and its eight tones as well. The writer knows of 
no other alphabet, whether in Europe or in Asia, 
that is so rich in variety of vocal elements or so 
competely phonetic as that of the Laos. Yet the 
task of the Laos child in learning to read is less 
difficult than that of most European children, far 
less than that of the English child. The gift of this 
alphabet, which is popularly believed to have come 



The Yellow Robe 33 

from the Buddha himself, was not the least of the 
benefits that Buddhism brought to the Laos. 

, , Second. Buddhism brought also edu- 

cation and the wealth of Indian litera- 

_ , . ture and civilization within the reach 

Education r ^u t t7 4.u 

of the Laos man. For women, there 

as everywhere. Buddhism does little. About one 
in three of the boys is educated in the monasteries. 
When they have learned to read and to repeat cer- 
tian formulae, they may take the first vows as 
novices. Even if they remain in the temple until 
they are twenty-one years of age and take the full 
monastic vows, they are not bound to celibacy and 
_, - poverty for life. They may leave the 

p . - order and marry when they choose, and 

j^ ' most of them do so. If they have be- 

come novices before they leave the 
monastery, tfiey are known through life by the title 
of "Noi''; if they have become full monks, they 
earn the higher title of " Nan/' All who have not 
studied in the monasteries are known as " khone 
dip/' " green men," and readily yield precedence 
and honor to the "Nan" and the " Noi." Bud- 
dhism has made education honorable among the 
Laos. 
-,, The Tri Pitaka, often called the Bud- 

•r» 1J1 • ^ dhist Bible, and other books modeled 
Buadnist . .^ . ^ .^ .^ . 

•D'ui upon it or written about it, constituting 

the rich and varied literature of Pali 

Buddhism, are to be found in the original, in whole 

or part, in many Laos monasteries, but few monks 



34 An Oriental Land of the Free 

understand them. They have also been rather 
freely rendered into Laos. The Buddhist canon is 
not closed as is the canon of our Scriptures ; on the 
contrary, new " scriptures ^' in the vernacular are 
still being prepared. They are modeled on the old, 
and draw largely from them, but they often intro- 
duce material entirely unknown to Buddhism a 
generation ago. For instance, an American mis- 
sionary found in a monastery in Chieng Mai, a 
" thum '' (sacred book) into which had been 
woven the story of the creation, the fall, the flood, 
much as they are found in Genesis, which had then 
been recently translated into Laos. The monks 

T and abbots seem to make little dis- 

Laos 

-- - tinction, as to authority, between the 

- .^ ^ old and the new. Both are read 

Literature ., ^ . .. v >> r ^t, 

either to gam merit, or for the 

stories they contain, rather than for their moral 
or doctrinal teaching. A considerable literature 
modeled thus on Buddhist texts has grown up. 
Folklore tales, plays, poems, conundrums — some 
original, some derived from India — are found in 
these books, and are told and retold among the 
people. Books of proverbs, such as the " Grand- 
father Teaches His Grandchildren," are deservedly 
popular, singularly free from anything objection- 
able, and well worth translation into English. 

T Althousrh a third of the men can' read, 

Laos , ^ , , , , . 

T.,. ^ - and crowds gather at the monasteries 
Minstrelsy ^ ,. ^ , .. r ^i 

to listen to the reading of the 

" thums '' or sacred books on Buddhist festival 



The Yellow Robe 35 

days, the Laos are not a reading people. They 
would rather listen to a story-teller than read for 
themselves. Minstrels gifted with facility in ex- 
tempore verse are in demand on all festal occasions. 
To the accompaniment of a rude violin, or of a 
considerable orchestra, they sing the praises of 
host and guests, whose applause and largesse they 
constantly win. This gift of minstrelsy belongs 
rather to the original character of the Laos, than 
to anything that has come to them from without, 
but it has grown and developed with the intel- 
lectual development of the people. 
^^, - Thus the educational influence of 

TK HHfi* > Buddhism upon the Laos has been 
great and beneficent. But what shall 
we say of Buddhism as a philosophy, a moral and 
religious system? This question is more difficult 
to answer. Sakya Muni, the Buddha (or " enlight- 
ened one"), was first of all a philosopher who 
sought the cause and cure of evil. His answer to 
the great problem of the world is found in his sys- 
tem of asceticism which aims to extinguish both 
-. desire and regret, both joy and sor- 

» , . . row, and ultimately to lose personal 

T^, ., , existence in Nirvana. It denies the 

Philosophy . - , , , , 

existence of the soul, and teaches 

nothing of God. Arising out of a protest against 
the polytheism of India, it was accused of atheism, 
and this accusation can hardly be denied. Al- 
though Buddhism does not actually deny the exist- 
ence of God, or of gods, it ignores them, it does not 



36 An Oriental Land of the Free 

worship them. It is practically atheism. The 

Buddha was but a man and has ceased to be; so 

their own books say. The Buddhist is not taught 

to lift the soul to anything above man himself. 

-- The idea of birth and death and rebirth, 

Karma . . , . 

- sometimes as an animal, again as man or 

P , . - angel, seems strange to a western mind, 
but had and has great hold on the 
thought of India. While transmigration seems ut- 
terly at variance with his denial of personality and 
of soul, Sakya Muni accepted it in a modified form, 
the doctrine of " Karma." Few even of the fol- 
lowers of the Buddha understand, or pretend to 
understand, his meaning. The idea commonly cur- 
rent among them is akin rather to the cruder ideas 
of transmigration current in India. I shall there- 
fore not attempt to explain ^' Karma," but only 
refer to literature on that subject.^ In some form, 

^ According to Buddhist psychology there is no personal 
soul, but only a union of qualities which are in a constant 
state of change. To' use an illustration : no single kind of 
building mateiial constitutes a house, nor all of them merely 
gathered together. They may form a house, but it is nothing 
apart from them and when they are taken away there is no 
house left. In like manner the union of qualities constitutes 
the individual, but when they are dissolved there is nothing 
left. The w^ay in which they have interacted during life, 
however, creates " Karma," merit or desert. In accordance 
with this a new individual is formed after death by a re- 
grouping of the qualities. This new individual has not the 
same personality as the old, for there is no such thing as 
personality ; but his condition depends on the Karma or merit 
of the former individual. — Ed. 



The Yellow Robe 37 

belief in transmigration has firm hold on the minds 
of the Laos people. 

--. . That every good deed has for its object 

Twr i_- to g"3<in merit for the doer, is the firm 

^ conviction of every Buddhist. Real al- 
truism, action prompted by love for one's fellow 
rather than by ultimate gain to one's self, is not 
expected outside the family circle, nor is it under- 
stood. If a man gives alms, he does it to accumu- 
late merit that shall ultimately outweigh his de- 
merit, and promote his own happiness hereafter. 
If he builds a monastery, or makes gifts to the 
*' order," or places a jar of water by the roadside 
that the weary traveler may drink, he makes merit 
thereby. To place a son, a grandson or some other 
lad in the monastery and support him there, to 
make the customary offerings and meet the other 
expenses involved in his entrance into the " order/' 
is a common form of *' merit-making." 
P - The gala days of the year are those on 
•^ which the people of a village unite to 

^ " make merit " by offerings at the common 
sanctuary. These " merit-makings " are the occa- 
sion of no little rivalry in display and taste, not 
merely in the number and beauty of the offerings, 
but in the design and construction of the " sadees," 
or miniature temples and palaces in which the gifts 
are carried to the temples. Rivalry and the desire 
for display, rather than any religious motive, is 
behind many of the gifts. Yet the aged especially, 
realizing that their time for ^* merit-making " is 



38 An Oriental Land of the Free 

limited, and knowing no other way to win favor in 
the unknown land from which no traveler returns, 
often make sacrifices that are pathetic. 

The Ten ^^^ '' ^^^ Precepts " of Sakya 

^ J ^ Muni have often been compared 

Commandments . , ^u ^ r- j ^ r 

f R 'HHln With the Ten Commandments of 

Moses. Like the Ten Command- 
ments, the " Ten Precepts " are divided into two 
tables, of which this is the first: 

Do not take life whether of man or beast 

Do not take what is not given. 

Abstain from unlawful sexual intercourse. 

Do not lie. 

Do not drink wine or strong drink. 

These correspond somewhat closely to the sec- 
ond half of the decalogue, and are recognized as 
binding on the laity as well as on the monks. 

The first half of the decalogue of Moses has to 
do with our duties to God, and finds no parallel 
whatever in the " Ten Precepts,'' the second half 
of which is as follows : 

Do not eat at forbidden times. 

Abstain from dancing, singing, music and stage plays. 

Use not a high or broad bed. 

Take not pleasure in garlands, scents or ornaments. 

Receive not silver or gold. 

It is evident that these latter precepts apply only 
to the monks, bidding them carry out the monastic 
ideas of Sakya Muni. The casual visitor at the 
*' v/ats " will soon discover that little real effort 
is made to obey them. 



The Yellow Robe 39 

How IS it with the first half of the " Precepts "? 
While offenses and evasions constantly occur, 
(offenses against the precepts occur in the monas- 
teries, as well as outside), yet dishonesty, drunken- 
ness and impurity are certainly less rife among the 
Laos than in other parts of Asia. The scandals so 
commonly connected with Buddhist temples in 
China, Korea and Japan, and so inseparable from 
Brahman worship in India, are practically unknov/n 
in Laos temples. 

■R riAh ' ^^^ precept demands especial men- 
P tion, the first and great command of 

p - the Buddha, " Do not take life 

whether of man or beast." The more 
conscientious monks strain all the water they 
drink; they go so far as to step aside from the 
path rather than crush an ant or worm. Even the 
common people count the fisherman or hunter a 
constant offender against Buddhist law. The 
fisherman feels that he evades the law if he allows 
the fish he has caught to die of itself, as it soon 
will. The priests themselves constantly eat the 
flesh of animals some one else has killed. So long 
as he does not actually take life, the Laos man 
counts cruelty to animals no offense against this 
law. He may maim or torture them, or look on 
suffering with seeming utter indifference. A law 
intended to develop pity has worked rather the 
other way. He considers it impossible to keep the 
law, for there, as everywhere, man craves flesh 
food. However, the fact that Christianity specific- 
ally sanctions the use of flesh as food, thus re- 



I 



40 An Oriental Land of the Free 

leasing him from bondage to a law he cannot keep, 

appeals to the common sense of every Laos man 

as an argument for Christianity. So does also the 

statement of Scripture that man, unlike the beast, 

is made in the image of God. 

— , It is not unfair to say that Buddhism 

-h/r ' ' IS not in the deeper sense a religion. 

-T - It gives little or nothing to satisfy the 

•r» jji^' real cravines of the human heart. 

Buddhism r^ ^w u -^ a 

One thmg, however, it does give 

which ought not to be omitted in any statement of 
Laos Buddhism: When the older men and women 
go to the temples on the Buddhist sacred days they 
are wont to pray that their life may be prolonged 
until they shall " see the face of him that is to 
come." They say that the Buddha told his fol- 
lowers that he, himself, was not a saviour, but that 
in the future there will come another " enlight- 
ened one," who shall save all that shall behold his 
face. I am told that this vivid sense of a messiah 
that is to come is not found among the Burmese 
and other Buddhists. Be that as it may, the im- 
pression made by this hope upon the Laos gives to 
the messenger of Christ an opportunity much used 
by our evangelists, to present to them Jesus as the 
one who fulfills the hope of all nations. 
Th A f "^^^ architecture of the Laos may be 
. • mainly borrowed from India and 

— . Burma, and its art as displayed in the 

images and pictures in its temples may 
be somewhat crude, yet the fact remains that Bud- 



The Yellow Robe 41 

dhism brought these arts to the Laos and that the 
boys in the temple schools learn not merely to read, 
but to saw lumber, to make brick and mortar, to 
build with brick as well as wood, to manufacture 
the umbrellas, the fans and many other articles 
they constantly use. We have seen reason to at- 
tribute to earlier causes rather than to Buddhism 
Til n hf- ^^^ comparatively high moral stand- 

r ^1. ards of the Laos, and that relip:ion did 

of the -. , , - , . . , . , 

J little to develop the spiritual side of 

-. ,-, . man's nature; but, even so, it still 

would be difficult to exaggerate the 
importance of Buddhism in the life of the people. 
Much that is best in their language and literature, 
the very characters in which it is written, they owe 
to Buddhism; much of their knowledge of the arts 
and of civilization came to them with the Yellow 
Robe. Buddhism^ found the Laos, as Christianity 
found our ancestors about the same time, little 
above the status of the savage ; it has made educa- 
tion honorable and strengthened and conserved the 
moral standards it found already among them. 
When we compare it with the other religions of 
Asia, even with so-called Christianity as we find it 
in South America, in Mexico and in the Philippines, 
we must concede that Buddhism has given much 
that is good, little that is evil to the Laos. 



CHAPTER IV 

DEMON WORSHIP AND WITCHCRAFT 

— , - In the crowded harbor and waterways 

The Laos r t^ i i i , i -.1 

T> ^ of Bang-kok, the traveler w^atches with 

±>oatmen . . , ^ , , , 

curiosity the Laos boats and boatmen. 

The craft are ill adapted to deep-water navigation ; 
the navigators are out of their element on the sea. 
But see them rather in the roaring rapids of the 
Me Ping, down which, under their steady hands 
and eyes the boats dash safely, yet almost at railway 
speed. In August, 1908, the writer raced down 
„ p. these thirty-two rapids, a distance of at 
•D 'ji least eighty miles, in seven hours. He 

has shot the Sault Ste. Marie in an In- 
dian canoe, and found it hardly more thrilling, and 
while the passage of the Sault is over in five min- 
utes, the rapids of the Me Ping continue with 
brief intervals of more quiet water for a whole day. 
The beetling cliffs, the swirling waters, the erect, 
alert boat captain, grasping with firm hand the 
giant steering oar, giving at just the right moment 
a few powerful strokes — it is a picture one can 
never forget. The writer is proud to call some of 
these boatmen his friends, men of splendid phy- 
sique, accustomed to meet and overcome danger in 
many forms. 

42 



Demon Worship and Witchcraft 43 

p. Yet the very dangers that surround 

q . . and the firm belief that the rapids 

of the Me Ping are the abode of 
spirits that lie in wait for the unwary, make the 
Laos boatmen, like the deep-sea fishermen of 
Labrador, exceedingly superstitious. For in- 
stance: we are started for the long trip of seven 
hundred miles to Bangkok. We tie up for the 
night at a village where some of the boatmen 
live. 

The next morning breakfast time passes and there 
are no signs of departure. *' What is the trouble, 
captain?" *' Two of the men have gone to have 
their grandfather tie their wrists," is the answer. 
Later in the day two hours more are spent at an- 
other village that another boatman may be 
similarly protected from the dangers that await us. 
At the head and again at the foot of the rapids, 
the boatmen stop to make offerings to the 
spirits. 

^ . . Not only the boatmen, but the whole 

-^ , . land and the whole people, are full to 
overflowing with customs and practices 
prompted by belief in unseen powers constantly 
ready to work them harm. As we travel by land, 
we often come to rude shrines where travelers offer 
flowers and food to the unseen powers. At night, 
as we camp in the forest, some of the men probably 
make such an offering before they taste their even- 
ing meal. Before they plant their rice, the 
villagers unite in offering chickens, or a pig, to the 



44 An Oriental Land of the Free 

spirits of the fields. Some especially curious 
superstitions gather about the building of the 
house. No Laos man, not a Christian, would ven- 
ture to take parts of two houses to build one, nor 
to use in any way the charred posts or beams of a 
house that has been injured by fire. Lucky days 
and hours must be chosen for any important under- 
taking. When sickness and death come, more 
sinister forms of the spirit superstition are sure to 
multiply. The new-born babe is laid across the 
head of the steps with an adjuration to the demons 
that, if the babe be the child of the spirits, the 
spirit will take it now; if not, that it be left forever 
alone. About^the last rites for the dead and the 
place of burial superstition again gathers. From 
childhood to old age the fear of evil spirits is ever 
present, a bondage all feel and would shake off if 
they could. 

-. . The Laos people recognize the existence 

^ . .^ of benign spirits who have an influence 
over their destinies. One old lady, whom 
it was a pleasure to visit, repeated to me a prayer 
not unlike the " Now I lay me " of our childhood 
days, with which each evening she committed her- 
self to the care of these good spirits. But such 
worship of good spirits is unusual ; spirit worship 
as we usually find it is directed to the evil spirits, 
and prompted wholly by fear. It is difificult to get 
at the real thought of the people, for they recognize 
that such worship is evil and are ashamed of it 
while they cling to it. 



Demon Worship and Witchcraft 45 

P^ ^ .. Buddhism, the nominal reHgion of the 

- ^ . .^ Laos, absolutely forbids any worship 
and Spirit , ' .. r .^ <c -^/r 1 ^ u.u 

.-^ -2- c)f the evil spirits. Make not the 

spirits great ; he who makes the spirits 
great, whether by tying the wrist, or wearing 
charms, or tattooing charms, by feeding the spirits 
or making offerings to them, that man is outside 
the religion of Gautama/' These are quoted as the 
words of the Buddha himself. Yet all the Laos 
people worship the spirits, and the Buddhist monks 
themselves are very often the leaders in this wor- 
ship. 

How shall we explain this total disregard of Bud- 
dha's express command? Why has Buddhism 
failed to drive out the demon worship that here, as 
all over Asia, preceded it? 

TT ui J. First. Because spirit worship has al- 

Unable to 1 1 , . 1 

q , J ways entered more deeply into the 

•^, P * life and soul of the Laos people than 

Buddhism. Their sense of the pres- 
ence and influence of the unseen has only been 
dulled, never removed, by Buddhist teachings. 
Though the Laos seek merit by listening to the 
Buddhist scriptures, and repeating its formulae of 
devotion; though the men are educated in Bud- 
dhist monasteries, and the women seek favor by 
supporting a son or grandson in the priesthood ; 
though the whole social life of the people centers 
in the Buddhist "wat" or monastery; still spirit 
worship is to-day, as it ever has been, the real 
religion of the Laos people. 



46 An Oriental Land of the Free 

^ p Second. Because, while the Buddha 

^ y saw that the worship of evil spirits 

was wrong and useless, while he 
himself may have broken with it wholly, he gave 
to his followers no refuge or strength that could 
deliver them from the fear of the unseen. Ask a 
Laos man why he worships the spirits, and if he 
answers at all, he will say it is because he dare not 
omit it. As the spirits said to the sons of Sceva, 
as recorded in the book of Acts, " Jesus I know, and 
Paul I know; but who are ye?'' So demon 
worship in Asia has in effect said to Buddhism, 
"Who are ye?'' 

Buddhism has in It no power to deliver its fol- 
lowers from the spirits. It has practically sur- 
rendered to the demons all they claim. The Bud- 
dhist monasteries are to-day, at least in many cases, 
the centers of the demon worship, and the bondage 
of the people to fear continues to-day as before 
the '' Yellow Robe " came to them. 
-,- . Demon worship in itself is always and 

, , everywhere a thing to be pitied and de- 

P^ plored. Yet in its relation to the work 

of the Christian missionary, even demon 
worship may be a schoolmaster to lead to Christ, 
for it has served to keep alive in the minds and 
hearts of the Laos people a sense of the unseen, a 
realization that man is dependent on spiritual 
powers outside himself for safety, for help, for his 
very being. I doubt whether it can be said that 
the Laos people vv^orship or distinctly recognize a 



Demon Worship and Witchcraft 47 

supreme being. The names of Phya Phom and 
Phya In (Brahm and Indra of Indian mythology) 
are often on their lips in folklore tales derived from 
India, but I do not think either is recognized as 
supreme, nor are prayers or worship directed to 
them so far as I am aware. Still, there is every- 
where prevalent a sense of dependence on unseen 
spiritual powers, wholly foreign to the self-depend- 
ence, the atheism, of Buddhism. 
^, . No stories from the Bible so readily 

_ ., hold the attention of a Laos audience 

as those of the creation and of the 
power of Christ over the demons. A God who 
created all and has power to deliver from evil 
spirits, meets the need and longing of their hearts. 
Many of our Christian people have thus been first 
drawn to Christ. While they continue to believe 
that evil spirits are about them on every hand, they 
believe that Jesus has delivered them from their 
power, and that in his name they can defy and 
cast them out. Even of those who have not ac- 
cepted Christ, multitudes recognize that over 
those who have accepted him, the demons have no 
power. 

p . Kindred with the spirit worship is the 

, universal belief in witchcraft. An ac- 

p count of the first case that came imder 

the writer's own observation will show 
better than any description the power and bearing 
of this delusion. 

Nan Teo was a well-to-do Laos farmer in a vil- 



48 An Oriental Land of the Free 

lage twenty miles from the city of Nan. He had 
a good rice field, buffaloes (used in plowing), sev- 
eral cattle, and a well-built house. A petty prince 
or " chow," who lived near him, wanted his field, 
but Nan Teo refused to sell. Nominally, a " man 
of the people '' has just the same rights before the 
law as a hereditary prince; practically, a man who 
opposes a *' chow " has little chance of success. 
We shall see that Nan Teo found this out to his 
cost. 

^, Not long after after Nan Teo's refusal 

« . . to sell, a man in his village became 

y^ seriously ill. The spirit doctor was, of 

course, consulted, and he declared at once 
that the spirits of some one were making all the 
trouble. He proceeded to stick pins into the body 
of the sick man who was already delirious, and to 
scarify his flesh with a tiger's tooth, so that his 
delirious cries, commonly believed to be the cries 
of the spirit that possessed him, might reveal the 
identity of the witch. The watch doctor soon in- 
terpreted these incoherent cries as an accusation 
against Nan Teo's wife and mother. 

^, So deep-rooted is the witchcraft 

The . : . , . , ^ i -r 

. ^. superstition m the minds of the Laos 

Accusation ^ , ^t, ^ ^t, w r^ 

people that the victim often ac- 
quiesces in the penalty inflicted, believing that even 
unconsciously he is responsible in some way for 
the illness or death of the patient. In this case 
Nan Teo's wife and mother indignantly denied the 
accusation, believing, as they afterwards told me, 



Demon Worship and Witchcraft 49 

that the witch doctor was in the pay of the " chow " 
who wanted to buy their field. 

^, -^ - In some way, evidence satisfactory 
^ to the minds of the superstitious 
village elders was obtained, and they insisted that 
the accused were guilty. The whole family was 
ordered to leave the village. They demurred and 
delayed, hoping at least to get a fair price for their 
belongings. An ofifer made for their cattle was far 
below what they were worth, and they refused it. 
That night one of the cattle was ruined by a sword 
cut. The next day they agreed to sell, and the 
" chow " promised to pay them about half what 
their field was worth. As yet, no money had been 
paid in either case, but the limit of time set for 
them to leave the village had come. In the night 
while they were asleep, some one set fire to their 
house and they escaped with only the clothes on 
their backs and what they could carry in their 
hands. 

p,. • The next night the missionary found 

7" the whole family of five shivering over 

T^ . a scanty fire at a " rest house " near his 
own door, and not far from the city of 
Nan. They had neither food, nor blankets, nor 
money. Bit by bit he drew from them their piti- 
ful story, and with the cooperation of the native 
Christians relieved their immediate necessities. 
He gave them a place to stay and work so that 
they could maintain themselves, and a promise to 
help them collect the money due them. I left not 



50 An Oriental Land of the Free 

long afterwards, and I do not know whether they 
succeeded in collecting the price of their field and 
cattle. I doubt whether they did, unless through 
the influence of the foreigner. 

P - The members of this family were intel- 
ligent and industrious, and so far as we 
could ascertain, had never before had any trouble 
with their neighbors. Yet in a week's time, by 
working on the superstitions of the villagers, the 
**chow" had deprived them of home and farm 
and all that they had, and turned them out, house- 
less and penniless wanderers. Such accusations 
are less frequent and less effectual now than in the 
past, but in a dozen years in Laos land I have 
known personally of many cases. Sometimes the 
accusations are directed against those who have 
made themselves obnoxious to the village; some- 
times, as in the case cited, personal jealousy, covet- 
ousness or spite seems at work. Sometimes, at 
least, all parties concerned really believe the ac- 
cused are possessed by, or in league with, evil 
spirits. 

The writer has never seen a case of " spirit pos- 
session " that seemed to him real ; other intelligent 
observers recognize the reality of it, at least in 
some cases. Yet, to argue against spirit posses- 
sion with a Laos man or woman would be a waste 
of breath. 

<< g . . The " spirit people,'' that is those who 

p - „ have been driven away from their own 

villages through accusations of witch- 



Demon Worship and Witchcraft 51 

craft, do not readily find a home in other villages, 
or even in the distant parts of the province. Their 
reputation is almost sure to go with them or fol- 
low them. Out in the mountains or forests, away 
from villages, there are whole villages of these 
" spirit people," where they have begun life anew, 
hoping to be free from persecution. As a whole, 
the people of such a village are apt to be below the 
average in intelligence and thrift, but discourage- 
ment and adverse circumstances account for this 
in part. Not a few of our most active and self- 
helpful Christian families have come from those 
who, at some time, were accused of witchcraft. 
^- Where the missionary or native 

-.-. . , Christians have been able to show 

Missionary s , . , . .1 j 

^ 4. > kindness to these accused persons 

^ in the time of their distress, they 
have often shown the deepest gratitude and have 
readily accepted the invitation to attend Christian 
services and read Christian books. Gradually the 
conviction that Christ is more powerful than the 
demons, that Christians need not and do not fear 
them, has gained currency among the people, non- 
Christian as well as Christian. They see, too, that 
" spirit people '' who have become Christians are 
no longer a danger to their neighbors. It has, 
therefore, become rather common for a family ac- 
cused or suspected of witchcraft to invite the elders 
or leaders of the nearest group of Christians to 
come and hold service in their house, and to tear 
down at the same time the charms and spirit 



52 An Oriental Land of the Free 

shrines that are a mark of all non-Christian homes. 

By this act they declare to all the village that they 

are Christians. Often, though not always, there is 

an end of accusation and suspicion. We accept 

such people as catechumens, but are slow to receive 

them to full membership in our churches, until a 

consistent Christian life for at least a year testifies 

to the reality of the change in allegiance. 

_,, Gradually the power of the witchcraft 

^ ^1 1 superstition is being broken. The mani- 
Outlook . \ J r -A ^ • • 

test use made of it by designmg men to 

promote their ends, as in the case of Nan Teo, has 

weakened its hold upon the more intelligent of the 

people. Progress in intelligence and education 

works against it; the spread of Christianity has 

weakened its hold on all who recognize Christ's 

power, whether they personally accept him or not. 

Yet the belief of most earnest Christian workers in 

spirit possession among those who have not taken 

*' refuge with Christ," still continues. In these 

and in other forms, belief in spirits and worship 

of them continues to be the real religion of the 

Laos people. 



CHAPTER V 

ARTS AND INDUSTRIES 

— ,- Silk and cotton fabrics as delicately fine, 

. silver and gold as intricately wrought, 

--. ^ ivory as beautifully carved as the marts 

of India afford, are not to be found 

among the Laos. Their lacquer is less beautifully 

finished, and their pottery is rude, as compared 

with the products of Japan and China. But the 

average Laos man lives in a better house and is 

more cleanly and better clothed and fed, than the 

average man on the plains of India. He is not 

only skillful in the use of his own tools, but ready 

to devise or adopt new tools, new expedients, new 

methods. 

TT As in the homes of our grandfathers 

Home . . J ^T 1 

T J ^ • 111 pioneer days, many a Laos home 

produces, not only its own food, but 
its own clothing. It depends also on the labor of 
members of the household for building material of 
every sort, even for most of its tools and utensils. 
In cities and large villages many foreign goods are 
sold, but in the more remote villages many a house- 
hold is clad in the product of its own cotton field 
and loom, eats little it does not raise or gather in 
the forest, uses few tools or utensils not made 

53 



54 An Oriental Land of the Free 

under its own roof, and thus is dependent upon the 
outside world for little except salt and the iron 
from which their tools are forged or cast, 
. y In less isolated places, division of labor 

yj,.. has gone farther. Almost every villager 

above the average in intelligence has 
some specialty that occupies his time when field or 
herd do not require attention. One is skillful in 
weaving baskets or matting, another makes better 
hats than his neighbors, a third is a blacksmith, a 
fourth excels in silver and brass work. This 
woman is a skillful trader and invests her capital in 
pepper, salt, or limes, when they are plenty; in the 
house opposite the women spend most of their time 
at their looms; others give time and strength to 
gardens of peppers, cotton, onions and tobacco. 
Weaving and the other processes that intervene 
between cotton boll or silkworm cocoon and the 
finished garment, have ever been looked on as 
peculiarly woman's work. Nowhere are to be 
found cotton goods of firmer texture, or with colors 
more cunningly blended, than on the looms of a 
Laos household. Beautiful silks are also woven, 
especially in Nan province. Though flax is raised, 
it is used only for cordage, and in making seines 
and nets. 

A W fh As I watch the better class of Laos 
.-^ ^ women in their work, I am often re- 

minded of Solomon's description of a 
worthy woman in the last chapter of Proverbs: 
" She seeketh wool and flax, and worketh willingly 



Arts and Industries 55 

with her hands. . . . She layeth her hands to the 
distaff, and her hands hold the spindle. . . . She 
maketh linen garments and selleth them, and de- 
livereth girdles unto the merchant." " She con- 
sidereth a field, and buyeth it; with the fruit of her 
hands she planteth a vineyard. . . . She looketh 
well to the ways of her household, and eateth not 
the bread of idleness." (Part of Prov. 31:13-27.) 
Evidently times and circumstances when these 
words were written were in some respects not un- 
like those of the Laos people to-day. 

T.^ , . - Not all the credit in textiles, how- 
Mechanical ' ^ ^u ^u 
J . ever, is due the women. The cotton 

^ gin, the spinning wheels, the reels 
and the shuttles, as well as the loom itself, are 
made by the men. It is worthy of note, too, that 
the looms are more substantial and more con- 
venient than those in common use in Burma, India 
and China. The ingenuity displayed in the loom 
appears also in the plow. We have all seen pic- 
tures of the plows in common use in some parts of 
Asia, very rude and inefficient; the Laos farmer 
uses a plow with a well-made iron share, well 
adapted to his needs. Again, since iron is costly 
and cannot be used freely in house-building, many 
houses are put together with wooden pins ; perhaps 
there is not a nail in the whole structure. To make 
places for these pins a good auger is a necessity, 
and Laos ingenuity has devised one. With a native 
hatchet, a large and a small knife, chisels and planes 
of his own manufacture, a saw and a gimlet, a Laos 



56 An Oriental Land of the Free 

carpenter will turn out cabinetwork that would 
puzzle an American master carpenter with a full 
chest of tools. With a bit of bamboo, a rope and a 
few odd pieces of wood, he will improvise a lathe 
that does excellent work. The mechanical skill 
that enables him to make good use of his own tools, 
makes him equally ready to use better tools when 
he can get them. Laos artisans to-day are demand- 
ing the very best wood-working tools, and they are 
willing to pay for them. But what has most im- 
pressed me as I have worked with them is their 
readiness of resource, and mechanical gift that, if 
it cannot do a thing in an accustomed way, will 
devise some way to reach the result. 
— ,, Almost every Laos man can plan and 

•5 .-J. build his own house and fashion some, 

f ^i. 3,t least, of the ruder tools he needs on 

TT his farm and in his home. Some one in 

every village can boss the job of sawing 
any lumber he may need. With a piece of hoop 
iron, a file, and wood that is at hand, he will make 
the saw he needs. Better saws can now be had of 
German make, and many are sold, but much lum- 
ber is still sawed, and well sawed, with the rudest 
tools. 

The frame of a Laos house is like the frame our 
grandfathers made, a few heavy timbers mortised 
together instead of many smaller ones. The walls 
are paneled like a door, and are completed ready 
to set in place before the " house-raising " begins. 
Posts, sills, plates and rafters, the entire frame is 



Arts and Industries 57 

carefully fitted together, piece by piece, and care- 
fully numbered, bamboo for the floors and thatch 
for the roofs are also ready, and a pig and other sup- 
plies for the feast as well. The lucky day is deter- 
mined upon, and all the village is invited to the 
" raising." Work often begins before it is really 
light, for it would be ill luck if even a post hole 
were dug the day before ; material may all be ready, 
but the actual work of erecting the house must be 
completed in a day. Many hands make light work 
of the heaviest tasks, and a small house is often 
completed before noon. 
^, The women of the house and of 

-T T^ . . the neis^hborhood have not been 

House-Raismg ... . ^^, , ^, 

_- idle m the meantime. ine pig 

has been killed and great quanti- 
ties of rice, peppers, bananas and vegetables pro- 
vided. About eight in the morning, and again in 
the middle of the day, the merry work ceases, and 
all gather about the tiny round tables with their 
steaming loads of rice and curry. At " house-rais- 
ings," as on other gala occasions, the feast is an 
indispensable part of the ceremonies, and if the 
work continues until night, feasting and merry- 
making, too often quickened by liberal use of the 
native rice whiskey, may continue till the wee 
small hours. 

P - Cigarettes, or tobacco to make them, 

p . *' meeung," or wild tea leaves and the 

^ betel tray, are all passed around after 

the more substantial part of the feast is over. A 



58 An Oriental Land of the Free 

child, four or five years old, imitates his elders, and 
is found gravely lighting his cigarette, or busily 
chewing his " meeung " or betel nut. Betel-chew- 
ing is not peculiar to Siam, but is a custom com- 
mon in India, Burma and China, as well. A fresh 
sera leaf, a dab of lime paste, a bit each of betel 
nut, of tobacco and of an astringent bush, all 
wrapped in the sera leaf, form the quid, and every 
man as he returns to work carries such a quid very 
evidently in one cheek. Betel-chewing tends to 
blacken the teeth and stain the lips and tongue a 
brick red. It also tends to make the gums recede 
from the teeth till the latter are loose and ready to 
drop out before old age fairly approaches. Still the 
" chew " of betel is antiseptic and helps to 
preserve the teeth even while it blackens them. 
Disgusting as the habit and the results are to us, 
more can be said in its favor than appears at first 
sight. 

- Houses may be built almost wholly of 

^^ . bamboo, but such a house lasts at most 
^Prosperity 

only a few years, and more often posts 

and fram.es are of solid wood. Given a frame of 
native " mahogany '' that will last a lifetime, if 
the family prospers basket work gives place in the 
walls to teak or oil-wood panels; sawed lumber re- 
places bamboo planks in the floor; and a tile roof 
takes the place of thatch. The transformation may 
be gradual, but it is typical of the change that I • 
have watched over the whole land the past fifteen 
years. Though timber is more expensive and labor 



Arts and Industries 59 

better paid, every year has seen improvement in 
the character of the houses built. It has been said, 
with some truth, I think, that if a Burman or a 
Siamese gets money ahead, it generally goes onto 
his back or into his belly ; but the Laos man's first 
thought is a better house. 

— , - The art and architectural skill of the 

. , . Laos still center where they began, 

in the Buddhist monasteries and 
temples. Only these and city walls have in the 
past been built of brick. Indeed, I am told that an 
old superstition forbade the use of brick in other 
ways. If so, the power of that superstition Is gone ; 
public buildings, public stores, even dwelling houses 
are to-day being built of brick. Yet the temples 
are still the most imposing and attractive buildings. 
In the city as well as in the village, sometimes in 
the midst of a forest or on top of a commanding hill, 
their many-storied, pagoda-like roofs (see accom- 
panying picture of a temple in Chieng Mai) attract 
and hold the eye. This heavy roof does not rest 
on the brick walls alone, but on beautiful wooden 
columns, such as appear in the temple interior on 
the same page. On these columns, as well as on 
the entrance doorway, or the whole front, a wealth 
of decoration in carving, lacquer and gold leaf, 
often most effective, is laid with a lavish hand. 
The pagodas found within the areas of all import- 
ant temples are unlike the many-storied pagodas 
of China. Like many other features of the tem- 
ples, they mark the dependence of Laos builders on 



6o An Oriental Land of the Free 

Indian models. Some recent temples follow Bur- 
mese models, but the result is usually less pleasing 
than the older work. Thousands of dollars are 
spent each year in gold leaf to cover afresh the 
ancient pagodas that mark places held peculiarly 
sacred. The great pagoda in Lampoon, one of the 
ancient capitals, has been twice completely re- 
gilded in the ten years of my residence there. 
The increase in wealth and population that has 
accompanied peace, has been in no way more dis- 
tinctly marked than by the increasing number and 
beauty of the temples. 

p. Laos city walls are often substantial and 

---^- picturesque. Of no avail against modern 
artillery, they were a real protection 
against robber raids such as were common scarce 
forty years ago. Built usually of brick over earth, 
the presence of laterite blocks in some of them, as 
at Lampoon, indicates that in part, at least, those 
walls go back hundreds of years. Stone masonry, 
now apparently a lost art among the Laos, seems 
to have been then fairly common. However, stone 
well adapted to masonry is neither abundant nor 
easily accessible to the cities. 

About twenty walled cities still exist in the Laos 
states of Siam alone. The number of ruined cities 
is much larger, but this does not so much imply 
that the population was at times larger than now, 
as that in those troublous times one city after an- 
other was taken and destroyed, and if rebuilt, re- 
built on a new site rather than on the old. In re- 



Arts and Industries 6i 

cent years part of these walls, especially the curious 
" pig's ear " outworks at the city gates, have been 
pulled down, and the material used in road-making. 
Still, much that is picturesque remains, though the 
growth of the cities to-day is mainly outside the 
walls. 

^- One of the most curious and import- 

ant industries of the Laos is the manu- 
j . facture of lacquer ware. From Chieng 

^ Mai this ware is not only sent all over 
the Laos states, but to Bangkok as well. Anyone 
who compares the Laos ware with Japanese or 
Russian lacquer ware, will be struck at once with 
its extreme lightness. If he examines carefully, 
and finds some nick in the lacquer covering, he may 
discover the reason; the Laos lacquer is laid over 
an exceedingly fine and strong basket work of 
split bamboo. While its finish is less artistic than 
the Japanese ware, its lightness, its strength, and 
its graceful form commend it to all. The gum from 
which the lacquer is prepared is found in the Laos 
forests, and forms an important article of export. 
- Repousse work in silver and gold is 

^.- done with much skill in all Laos cities, 

but little of this work has found its way 
to foreign markets. This is because Burmese sil- 
ver work is similar and equally good, and there is 
in the Laos states no adequate supply of native 
silver. However, some exquisite specimens of sil- 
verware and ivory carving have recently drawn at- 
tention to it. There is a little brass and no gold in 



62 An Oriental Land of the Free 

the country, save what is imported, and work^ in 
these metals is not important. Charcoal, iron 
and steel of fair quality are made and wrought into 
knives, plowshares and other utensils and tools, 
but the supply is inadequate, and there is a con- 
siderable demand for foreign iron and ironware. 
No coal has yet been found, and iron is not abun- 
dant, so the industrial future is not promising. Laos 
will never be a rich country. 

p . No notice of Laos industries should 

J ^ fail to mention wood-carving, as no 

^ - Laos temple, or Laos house of any 

Sculpture ^ . "^ ' - , , . ^ .^ 

pretensions, would be complete with- 
out it. Even in the humbler homes and humblest 
utensils, exquisite bits of the wood-carver's art are 
often found. The gable ends, the ridgepole, lintel 
and doorposts, the doors themselves, the entire 
front of the temple sometimes, are adorned with 
carvings in teak wood, sometimes covered with 
lacquer and inlaid with mother-of-pearl. It is less 
perfect than the best Swiss and Tyrolese carving, 
but one is often reminded of these. Finely carved 
images of the Buddha in rock crystal are found in 
some of the older temples, as well as images in 
bronze, brass and silver, but I do not know that 
such work is produced to-day. The most common 
images and ornamental work in the temple are of 
brick covered with stucco. The best work of this 
sort to-day is done by men who have learned their 
trade in Burma. However, the amount of stucco 
work is everywhere so great that much of it must 




i 




A Laos Boat 
Note Polemen and Cabin 



Arts and Industries 63 

be native. Some of it is very effective. Stucco 
work as v^ell as v^^ood-carving and brass v^ork 
in the temples are often covered with gold leaf. 
Princes and wealthy merchants thus display their 
wealth, and gain, as they think, much merit for 
themselves. 

Laos boats are of a peculiar type, and 
p. .. -. are specially fitted to the water they 
^ have to navigate. Of too shallow draft 
and too small freight capacity for the lower river, 
they seem odd and out of place in Bangkok. It is 
when poled or pulled up the swirling waters of the 
rapids that they may be seen at their best. The 
building of these boats is one of the main industries 
at Chieng Mai and river villages near by. A single 
tree trunk forty or fifty feet long is hollowed out, 
then gradually spread by steam and pressure to 
form not only the keel, but two feet of the sides. 
Above this the sides are formed of planks, lap- 
streaked on. The deck, the walls and roof of the 
cabin, the high prow, the enormous steering oar, 
all have a history and a peculiar adaptation to 
needs. The stern, shaped like a fish's tail, seems 
merely ornamental, but may have a use a foreigner 
does not readily understand. The keel and bottom, 
all of one piece, is exceedingly heavy, but it makes 
the boat rigid and specially fits it to be dragged 
safely over the rocks that fill the narrow channel 
at the rapids in low water. 

Already the railway is surveyed to Lakawn, and 
in ten years from now the Laos boat may be a 



64 An Oriental Land of the Free 

thing of the past, and one of the most picturesque 
elements in Laos Hfe may disappear forever. 
_ - As in other parts of Asia, the 

- conventional garb and utilitarian 

^. ... ^. ways of the West are gradually re- 

Civilization , ^, . ,. . . ^. \ 

placmg the distmctive dress, uten- 
sils and conveyances of oriental peoples. Western 
civilization brings advantages to the East that I do 
not mean to minimize, but it is robbing it, as it has 
already robbed the West, of much that is pictur- 
esque and in the highest sense useful. 



CHAPTER VI 

THE LAOS YEAR IN FIELD AND HARVEST 

^. Rice and teak may seem to have little in 

common, but for the Laos man they fit 

, into one another both in space and time. 

One furnishes his main food, the other his 

main source of v^ealth; one keeps him busy in the 

M^et season, the other in the dry; one occupies the 

plain, the other the mountain and forest. To these 

two great industries of rice-growing and lumbering 

all others are subordinate and secondary. If you 

would know and appreciate Laos industry and life, 

you must see it in rice-planting and harvest, in 

logging camp and river jam. 

«, . ^ -, The planting and care of the rice crop 

Ramfall 4.1, t-n n ^u ^u - u 

among the hills of the north is by no 

p. means so simple a matter as on level 

plains near the sea. There the Burmese 
or Siamese farmer simply waits until the abundant 
rains flood the whole country, and keep it flooded 
through the rice season. Not so in the north, 
where lofty ranges of mountains along the Bur- 
mese border rob the trade winds of most of the bur- 
den of rain they bring from the Bay of Bengal 
before they reach the plains of northern Siam. 
Along the western side of these mountains from 

65 



66 An Oriental Land o£ the Free 

Maulmein in Burma, north to Assam, an annual 
rainfall of one hundred and twenty to two hundred 
and forty-five inches makes irrigation unnecessary. 
As one goes south from Maulmein, the mountains 
are lower and cut off less rain, so that nearly the 
same conditions prevail in lower Siam. On the other 
hand, in Chieng Mai the total rainfall does not 
usually exceed forty inches, and is much less regu- 
lar. The Laos farmer must therefore depend for 
his rice crop, not on the irregular rainfalls in the 
plains, but on the mountain streams. 

T . . Irrigation is a necessity and a problem 

Irrigation , ^ . -.^ . \^., 

of serious difficulty. When one sees 

great ditches that bring the water many miles, with 
aqueducts that carry them at times across not in- 
considerable valleys and streams, and realizes that 
all this work has been done without transit or 
compass, or other surveying instruments ; when one 
sees the dams and levees that are built to control 
the floods, and watches the teak logs whirled end 
over end against these feeble barriers by the swol- 
len waters, he begins to appreciate the patience and 
skill of the Laos farmer. At best the ditches must 
be cleansed of accumulated sediment each season, 
the aqueducts and dams repaired and strengthened 
or rebuilt each year, and only constant watchful- 
ness in flood time can save the levees and dams 
from destruction, the crops from serious loss. All 
this work, too, is done by hand; no scrapers or 
ditchers, or pile-drivers help in the work, which is 
usually done by the families whose rice plains 



The Laos Year in Field and Harvest 67 

" eat " the water of the ditch in question. Despite 
their efforts, not unfrequently the teak logs that 
beat like battering rams against dam and dike in 
flood time break through the one or the other, and 
whether the supply of water is thus cut off from 
the higher levels, or the lower levels inundated 
thereby, in either case the crop is ruined. The 
rice farmer's lot is not an easy one. 
p. „. ^ - The whole area fed by a ditch is ter- 
- raced and divided by narrow ridges of 

p, earth that serve as footpaths when 

the plain is flooded, into sections 
usually less than a quarter of an acre in size, each 
of which must be perfectly level. The water is 
allowed to enter the higher terraces first, then, as a 
section or terrace is flooded, the water is turned 
to other and lower ones. When a section has been 
flooded, so that the hard-baked earth has become 
soft, plowing begins. The plowshare is not unlike 
one share of an old-fashioned " double-shovel plow '^ 
or a corn cultivator, but when set at the proper 
angle and skillfully handled it turns the earth, now 
softened by the overflow, almost as well as our own 
plows, but does not go as deep. 
TVi "W f ^^ ^^ ^^^ Philippines and in India, 
-. rr , the animal that draws the plow is the 

clumsy-looking water buffalo. His 
big body and horns and short legs give a false im- 
pression ; usually slow and sleepy in his movements, 
his eyes watch everything, and when aroused he is 
capable of considerable speed and is a fierce antago- 



68 An Oriental Land of the Free 

nist. He is a more real and present danger to 
the traveler than the tiger that lurks in the forest. 
Yet dangerous as he is, he is often curiously 
docile in the hands of the tiny boy or girl who 
watches him. Enormously heavy and strong, fond 
of the water and mud in which he delights to wal- 
low, he is just fitted to pull the plow and harrow 
in the flooded rice fields. There the buffalo is 
always used singly. They are yoked in pairs to 
haul timber and logs. The buffalo is used for about 
three hours in the early morning, and again in the 
cool of the evening, but from eight to four — through 
the heat of the day — he must be allowed to rest 
and feed. If he cannot find m^ud in which to wal- 
low, or a stream in which to lie while he chews his 
cud, he does not thrive. At night, tethered to- 
gether in the dooryard, the animals edge up to the 
smudge that is built to keep off the mosquitoes. 
p; The water is allowed to stand on the 

p. . plowed fields until gr^ss and weeds are 

^ in a measure killed, then a peculiar har- 
row, drawn by a buffalo — not unlike an old- 
fashioned hayrake — drags out the weeds and straw 
and at the same time mixes the mud and water to 
a tolerably smooth mass. In the middle of the 
day, while the buffalo rests and feeds, the farmer is 
busy completing by hand the work of the harrow, 
repairing the ridges of earth that confine the water 
to each section, and controlling the flow of water. 
Meantime the seed rice has been thickly sown in 
beds where the children can watch it and keep off 



The Laos Year in Field and Harvest 69 

the crows. I know of no more beautiful sight than 

the fresh green of these seed beds in which the rice 

is allowed to grow until it is about a foot high. 

It is then pulled up, shaken from the earth, and 

tied in bunches convenient for handling. 

Plowing and harrowing are now completed, and 

earth and water over the flooded fields form a 

creamy paste of mud, in which father and mother 

Wade while they plant the rice. Holding in the left 

hand a bunch of the young rice, with the right each 

deftly seizes two spears of rice and plunges them 

together into the soft mud at his feet. In poor land 

the rice must be more closely planted, but about 

eight inches apart each way would be an average. 

The movements of an expert rice planter are so 

swift one can scarce follow them with the eye, yet 

it is at best slow work. Only an expert can plant 

a half acre in a day. 

-^ - Once the rice is planted, if the supply of 

^, water keeps up and no nood comes to 

the , - . . - , . . 

TT . drown the rice, the farmer s duties are 

light till harvest approaches. Once at 
least — more often if low water allows weeds to 
grow — the children must go over the fields and pull 
out the weeds that grow despite the water. If any 
of the rice dies, fresh shoots must be set. Occa- 
sionally, if a flood kills all the rice in a limited area, 
the farmer can get enough young rice to replant the 
whole, but when planted late the crop is short. 

Drought, flood, plant disease, caterpillars and 
crabs, are some of the difficulties with which the 



70 An Oriental Land of the Free 

farmer must contend. In addition, constant watcH 
must be kept against cattle, buffaloes and elephants, 
lest they eat and tread down the green rice. As har- 
vest approaches vast flocks of birds gather and take 
toll, despite scarecrows and clappers and shouting 
boys. 

P . A little before the grain is ripe the 

, ^ water is shut off and the fields are al- 

rp. , . lowed to dry. Even then the barefoot 

^ reapers are often ankle deep in soft 
mud. Their reaping knives are like short sickles. 
Each stool of rice is cut separately and allowed to 
dry for a day before the rice is bound in small bun- 
dles. In Nan and Pre, the cut grain is stacked 
around a square of ground that is prepared as a 
threshing floor, but in Chieng Mai the grain is 
threshed at once. Rice has no chaff, and, since it 
has only to be broken from its stem, is easily 
threshed. In Chieng Mai an enormous shallow 
basket, ten feet in diameter, is carried from place 
to place in the field and the bundles of rice are 
beaten out over the edge. In Nan, heavy boards 
set at an angle are placed round the threshing floor 
and over these the rice is threshed out. 
A -LT f. Since the threshing in Nan waits a 

--, . - month or more on the convenience of 

the farmer, there is time to make it a 
festal occasion. Each farmer in turn, or a group of 
them that have stacked their rice around a single 
threshing floor, makes a " bee " and invites all the 
countryside to help thresh his rice. With laughter 



The Laos Year in Field and Harvest 71 

and jest, with feasting, and covert if not open love- 
making between the lads and lassies, the work goes 
merrily on. Minstrelsy, song and games of various 
kinds, have place after darkness falls on the busy 
scene, although, if it be moonlight, the sound of 
the threshing may often be heard far into the 
night. One disadvantage of this plan is the danger 
from thieves and elephants. Watch must be kept 
each night beside every threshing floor until the 
grain is threshed and carried away. The customs 
at Nan certainly make the threshing a picturesque 
scene and make the season less hurried, more 
merry and light-hearted than in Chieng Mai. 
«. . When the harvest is on, every man is sure 

p. to ask of his employer a week off to " buy 

rice/' He thinks he can buy it much 
cheaper in the field, and does not count the time he 
• spends going from place to place, haggling over 
the price; perhaps he finally pays more than he 
would have had to pay in the first field he visited. 
As a matter of fact, save among friends, little rice 
is sold at once, the owner usually holding on in the 
hope of higher prices, the buyer looking for lower. 
But what of that? The pleasure of " buying rice " 
is the share in the joy of harvest; a vacation is 
worth much to him, as well as to you and to me, 
even if it brings in no shekels. 

rp, T From the beginning of the heavy rains 

^ about July i, until in the middle of 

January when the last of the harvest 

is brought in, the time of the vast majority of the 



72 An Oriental Land of the Free 

Laos people is occupied with labor in the fields. 
The nearly six months that intervene before an- 
other crop must be planted is a time when farm 
labor is light, and the thrifty, active man seeks 
other employment. During these months little 
rain falls, and as the heat of the year culminates 
in March and April, it is not a time to grow any- 
thing, save in spots where abundant water for irri- 
gation is to be had. Then it is that the thought and 
footsteps of men turn to the forests, where many 
thousands of them are employed during the dry 
season. But ere we follow them hither we will 
see a little of the work in the fields after harvest. 
^ J Where water for irrigation is abundant, 

• ^-L. Tx ^ second crop of rice may be planted 
m the Dry . ^ , jt. /j-t 

^ "^ m February and harvested in June. 

There are also low-lying areas, wholly 
flooded during the rains, that produce a good crop at • 
this season. The amount of dry-season rice planted 
increases each year, but over the bulk of the rice 
plains the water is insufficient to mature a second 
crop of rice. Even for other crops that require less 
water and a shorter season, the time available be- 
fore the blistering heat of March and April dries 
up everything is very short. Tobacco, onions, gar- 
lic and some other vegetables are planted in the 
rice fields. As soon as the rice can be got out 
o£ the way or even earlier, as soon as the floods 
are over, the sand bars along every stream are 
hastily fenced in and prolific gardens of peppers, 



The Laos Year in Field and Harvest 73 

cucumbers, beans, sweet corn, okra, mustard, sweet 
potatoes and squashes, soon appear. It is not long 
until the receding waters leave most of these gar- 
dens high and dry. Shallow wells are dug in the 
sand, and by dint of many hours of labor each day 
with bucket and dipper these gardens are brought 
to maturity. 

_,- p. The harvests once over, the morning 
p - markets are full once more. The very 

first of the new rice, patiently hulled in 
the rice pounder, is eagerly sought for. It has a 
delicate flavor that is lacking after harvest. All 
through the year the work of " pounding the rice '* 
is a daily task for the women and children in every 
household. However, the amount of rice sold 
pounded, that is ready to cook, increases each year. 
Many families prefer to store their extra rice and 
pound it before gelling it. Not only* do they get 
a little higher price for it, but they have less weight 
to carry to market, and the bran fed to the pigs 
adds .to the family income. Pigs are not usually 
allowed to run at large, but are fed by hand, not 
only with this bran but with weeds gathered by the 
children and cooked with the bran by the grand- 
mother in a big earthen pot reserved for that pur- 
pose. The rice pounder is a big wooden mortar 
sunk in the ground, whose pestle is lifted by a lever 
with the foot and allowed to drop by its own 
weight. In the hands of a skilled woman it breaks 
less of the rice than the rice mills, but it is slow. 



74 An Oriental Land of the Free 

^^, Havinp- stored the harvested rice 

Other . ^1 . u u ^ A ' ^u 

T^ c^ 111 the nee house, helped in the 
Dry-Season , . , , . , . ., 

r^ . ^ plantms;- of his garden and paid 

Employments f . . .1 , i i ^ r ^. 

his taxes, the husband and father 

is free to accept such remunerative employment as 
may come to him. The care of the garden and pigs, 
the watching of the buffaloes and cattle, the market- 
ing of the surplus rice and the produce of gardens 
and fruit trees, can safely be left to the oversight 
of the wife. The dry season is therefore the time 
of the year when lumber is sawed, new granaries 
and houses and temples erected, new fields cleared, 
and new irrigation ditches made. In short, the 
thousand and one things that await a convenient 
season are done at that time. 

•^ , Many of those employed the year round 

• ^i. by timber companies are Kah Mooh, 

p men of a " hill tribe," in French Laos 

who are particularly skilled with the 
ax and with elephants. They come over, a hundred 
together, for a few years and then return to their 
homes on the French side of the border. They are 
willing to work the entire year, and can be had 
more cheaply than Laos workers, and they cut 
most of the timber. But during the dry season a 
large number of Laos men are also employed to 
girdle the trees, to clear underbrush, and guard 
both standing timber and logs against fire, and to 
make roads for the elephants to drag the logs down 
the mountains. Many others are employed in 
cutting timber other than teak, for house posts, for 



The Laos Year in Field and Harvest 75 

lumber and for fuel, and in gathering rattan and 
various resins and gums used in making dammer, 
varnishes and lacquer. 

, ^ . Again in the months that intervene be- 
- -. tween rice-planting and harvest, Sep- 

^ *^ tember and October, especially, when 

the floods lift the heavy logs, many men are em- 
ployed to help the elephants in the drive, working 
the logs off the sand bars and keeping them moving, 
preventing them, if possible, from gathering in a 
jam that closes the channel* Despite all care, 
some teak log will get caught and others gradually 
pile against it, till hundreds, even thousands of logs 
are piled in seemingly inextricable confusion clear 
across the channel. Such a jam of logs has many 
times endangered the bridge at Chieng Mai, and in 
the rapids boats sometimes must wait for days till 
the water goes down sufficiently for the elephants 
and men to be able to get at the logs, or till a higher 
rise sweeps all before it and clears the channel. 
p. - I know of no more interesting sight 

f W t than to watch a company of elephants 
at work to break such a jam, and open 
the channel. A mahout sits on the head of each 
elephant to direct it, but often the intelligent 
animals seem themselves to know what to do. The 
males work with tusk, trunk and head, the females 
helping with trace chains attached to broad trace 
bands over their shoulders. One by one the key 
logs are pulled out, and as the mass of logs begins 
to move the warning " trumpet " of some watchful 



76 An Oriental Land of the Free 

tusker gives the alarm, and the great beasts rush" 
for safety to the bank or down stream. Not in- 
frequently, one of them is injured, or even killed 
in the vrork, but still without these giants of the 
forest it would be difricult to handle the timber 
of the tropics. There is no snow to make easy the 
moving of enormous loads, and as yet little machin- 
ery has been introduced that could replace them. 
_- Anv book on Siam that eave onlv a 

p. , passmg reierence to these kmgs ot the 

- *. animal kinsfdom would certainlv be in- 

of Siam , ^ 1 . .1 ' 1 

complete, the more so, that the largest 

elephants in the world are said to be those found 

in the forests of Siam, especially in the Laos states. 

Years ago, when the timber business was sm.aller 

than now, every Laos family of means had an 

elephant, perhaps several of them. They were 

used frequently on journeys as well as to drag 

timber and bring in the rice from the fields. It 

was easy then to hire them for a journey across 

country. The writer traveled with and on them 

a few tim.es years ago. In those days they were 

well called the '''' ships of the forest.'' To-day the 

increase in the timber business has so increased the 

demand and enhanced the price that they are used 

little in other work. Only here and there can one 

see the "' family elephants,*' so common not many 

years ago. A good tusker is now vrorth a thousand 

dollars, and only the princes, of those who have 

constant use for them, can afford to ovv'n one. 

Each year the princes who claim ownership in the 



The Laos Year in Field and Harvest 77 

wild elephants in the mountains, organize hunts to 
bring in those untamed children of the forests and 
train them for the work they alone can do. In 
April, 1908, twenty-five of these captives, each 
escorted by and chained to a tame elephant, were 
brought together into the city of Chieng Mai. It 
was a great event, and several princes, each with 
his retainers, mounted on elephants, went out to 
meet them, so that a hundred elephants or more 
appeared in the procession. Probably at least ten 
of these twenty-five captives died before they could 
be trained to the work and life of a captive, but 
the balance would bring five to ten thousand dollars 
to their captors. This seems cruel, but it is prob- 
ably unavoidable. Nowadays there is little or no 
cruelty in the method of capture of the elephants, 
and great care is taken with their food and train- 
ing. 

. -^ Broken for the most part while still 

FT h f you^g"^ ^^d treated with reasonable 
kindness, the trained elephants often 
become very docile and much attached to their 
keepers, but every now and then harsh treatment or 
inherent bad blood makes a rogue elephant. The 
physician in charge of the Chieng Mai Hospital, 
Dr. J. W. McKean, tells the following incident : 

" Not long ago my friend. Dr. W. A. Briggs of 
Chieng Rai (to whom this book owes its best photo- 
graphs) was in Chieng Mai on mission business. 
I asked the Chow Raja Wong, the prince who ranks 
next to the governor, to place some of his elephants 



78 An Oriental Land of the Free 

at our disposal for photographic purposes. To 
this the prince readily assented. We found the 
palace yard well filled with elephants. 

" Two particularly fine ones, the princess favor- 
ites, were to be photographed first. To add a 
flavor of novelty, I suggested that His Excellency 
ride on the neck of the larger. He consented and 
proposed that I ride on the other. In a few minutes 
the prince, re-dressed as a mahout, mounted his 
tusker, and I mounted the elephant with a howdah. 
Dr. Briggs made one exposure, the one shown in 
the picture, and asked us to change position a bit 
before he pressed the button again. We did so; 
without warning the prince's beast charged mine 
from behind and drove him headforemost against 
an eight-foot solid board fence, which can be seen 
in the photograph behind the larger elephant. He 
withdrew for a moment, giving me time to spring 
to the fence and escape to the ground on the other 
side; then, thrusting his tusks into the side of my 
elephant just behind the fore leg, he drove him 
broadside through that high fence as though it had 
been made of straw, and pinned him up against a 
building beyond. Although his servants and 
friends were white with terror, the prince sat on 
the neck of that ferocious brute like the prince 
that he is, till the elephant's own driver, climbing to 
the top of the fence, sprang to the monster's back, 
crawled past the prince and seated himself on his 
head. No sooner did the brute feel his master in 
command, than he drew back and allowed the poor, 



The Laos Year in Field and Harvest 79 

wounded elephant to arise. The latter, although 
seriously injured, ultimately recovered. In terror 
and confusion, the other elephants had stampeded, 
and there were no more photographs that day. I 
have not sat on an elephant's neck since.'* 

This favorite of the prince has several times 
tried to kill his mahout, or seriously injure other 
elephants, but the prince still uses and loves him. 



CHAPTER VII 

THE FACE OF THE LAND 

p • - As the mountains are round about 

Jerusalem, so are they round about all 
the Laos valleys. As the heart of the Jewish cap- 
tive longed for his native hills, so the heart of the 
Laos man or woman out of sight of these moun- 
tains longs for the verdure-clad slopes. Even upon 
the foreigner who has been resident there, the 
charms of " Fair Laos '^ have laid their spell. 
When back in his native land, he lifts his eyes, but 
sees not the encircling hills to which his spirit 
turns. As in Japan, three fourths of the area never 
can be cultivated. Were the rainfall as abundant 
as in Japan, a larger area would be available, but 
rains are irregular and uncertain. Only the land 
that is most fertile, and most favorably situated, can 
profitably be cultivated, practically only that which 
can be irrigated. 

p - Though the Laos states as a whole 

p- K are sparsely populated, some of these 

fertile areas have a very dense popu- 
lation. Stand with me on a rice plain near the 
center of population of the province of Lampoon, 
just south of the new chapel in Bahn Pan. The 
rice plain about you is as level as a floor, but in 

80 



The Face of the Land 8i 

every direction you can see mountains that sur- 
round the great Chieng Mai plain rising to a height 
of four to eight thousand feet. East of you and 
near at hand, is the village of Muang Chee with 
four thousand people; to the south lies the village 
of Sun Ka Noi, only a little smaller ; west and north 
are two other large villages, and within three miles 
of the point where we stand are a do^en other 
villages with one to five hundred people each. Al- 
together, within that radius of three miles, is a 
farming population of hardly less than twelve 
thousand people, or nearly five hundred to the 
square mile. Some of them may work land outside 
this area, but most of them depend for their sup- 
port on the area in which they live. Within 
these limits, the population is as dense as in Bel- 
gium, only a little less dense than on the plains of 
China. 

mu Ti/r ^ • But only five miles away, one 

The Mountains ^ .- * ^ r r 

r> . enters a district of forest and, 

mountain w^here the traveler pro- 
ceeds for three days before reaching any consider- 
able village. There are fertile valleys to be sure, 
but they are narrow and isolated. Although clad 
with vegetation, often to their summits, the mount- 
ains are for the most part too barren or too steep 
for cultivation. 

j,r . , Only in well-watered ravines and 

Natures -/ - ^ . , 

r\ r^ 3 valleys among the mountains does 

Own Gardens /: j ^i Z -ij i • r 

one find that wild luxuriance of 

vegetation that we are apt to imagine characterizes 



82 An Oriental Land of the Free 

the tropics everywhere. In such spots tree ferns, 
wild palms and bananas grow luxuriantly, a wealth 
of smaller ferns lift their graceful fronds from the 
crevices of the rocks, long palmlike vines of the 
prickly rattan are festooned from the trees. Above 
and around them all, more graceful than either, the 
clumps of bamboo curve upward and outward. 
One never tires of watching the ever-changing 
beauty of these, Nature's own gardens, especially 
if through the swaying foliage he catches glimpses 
of verdure-clad cliffs and trickling waters. Such 
spots of beauty may be found near the " Gates 
of the Mountains," in Lakawn, in the '^ Valley of the 
Four Thousand,'' in Nan, in "Wild Palm Glen," on 
the slopes of Ogre Mountain, north of Chieng 
Mai. 

^ . - The delicate spring flowers that are the 
p. charm of the American forest are hardly 

matched in the tropics. The so-called 
"ground orchids," that abound on the mountains 
in April, are nearest to them. The real orchids are 
mainly air plants and bloom in the clefts of tall 
forest trees. Just at the close of the dry season, 
whole forests of flowering trees blaze out in gor- 
geous red and yellow and pink. Many of these, as 
well as the more modest acacias, tamarinds and 
" fool beans," belong to the pea family which pre- 
dominates among the flowers of Siam. Earlier in 
the season, thickets of certain compositse make 
great masses of purple, of dull red, and of yellow, 
beside the path. However, flowers are sought by 



The Face of the Land 83 

the Laos maidens, not for their color, but for their 
fragrance. The "jewel-tree'' furnishes its delicate 
greenish flowers for their wreaths almost through- 
out the year. Tuberoses, golden acacias, jasmine 
and roses, are among the favorites. The young 
man is more apt to choose flowers of brilliant color, 
and places over his ear a sprig of " peacock-flower," 
or a brilliant-hued orchid. 

-5. - _ .- These brilliant flowers remind one of 
the plumage of the chattering little 
parrots that sometimes appear in almost countless 
numbers. Other birds of brilliant plumage flash 
in and out of the forest glades. White and gray 
cranes, pelicans and sandpipers, abound along the 
rivers. The myna bird perches gravely on the back 
of the grazing buffalo, and searches for his food, 
to the evident relief of the great beast. Doves not 
unlike our wood pigeon utter a similar note in the 
forest, and flocks of crows annoy the farmers as 
they do here. But there is a notable absence of 
song birds; the woods there are never vocal with 
their tuneful notes. 

Th H After all, it is not these garden 

f th T k ^Po^s of the mountains that dwell 
most in the memory. The rocky and 
somewhat barren heights are the home of the teak, 
most valuable of the timber trees of Siam, the 
greatest source of the country's wealth. The con- 
servation and wise use of these forests has in 
recent years demanded and received the best 
thought of the government and its advisers. 



84 An Oriental Land of the Free 

^ , — ^ Many other trees valuable for tim- 

Other Forest , . ^4. ^- ^ ^.t, 

^ ber, and more attractive to the eye 

than the teak, are also found in 

these mountains. Much of this timber is so dense 

and heavy that it will not float even when well 

seasoned, and it is very difficult to handle. The 

largest and finest of these trees are often left behind 

when timber is cut, because they cannot handle 

them. I rememxber especially, one giant of the 

forest. Nearly twelve feet in diameter at the base, 

its shaft towering skyward straight as an arrow, a 

full hundred feet, its spreading top raised still 

higher, it was a landmark in every direction. 

.-. i> Tn. ^ Among the mountains of Nan is a 
God's First ^,,, . „^ , ..^^, . 

_, - grove of poo-ie trees of little value 

for timber but of great beauty, that 

stretches along the crest of a narrow ridge for 

miles. Their corrugated trunks like fluted columns, 

and the grateful shade of their tops far, far above 

one's head, remind one of some Gothic cathedral 

or of the massive monoliths of a Grecian temple. 

Other trees love rather the moister soil of the river 

bottoms. Of these, the cotton tree which furnishes 

the filling for the mattresses of the country, and the 

oil tree which supplies a sap not unlike turpentine 

and a valuable timber, are both common and 

beautiful. The oil tree especially forms beautiful 

groves along the main road. Such a grove along 

the way from Chieng Mai to Lampoon is shown in 

the accompanying illustration. Notice how the 

towering height of the trees dwarfs the horse and 




On the Road from Chieng Mai to Lampoon 
A grove of oil trees 



The Face of the Land 85 

cart in the middle of the picture. Logs eighty feet 
in length, eight feet in diameter, and perfectly 
straight, have been cut in this grove. 

, ^ ^ A very different tree, but not less 
p _ beautiful, is seen in all the temple 

grounds. Under one of these " po " 
trees, not unlike the banyan tree, Sakya Muni, the 
founder of Buddhism, sat in meditation for three 
years ere he entered upon " the noble paths," as 
the principles of Buddhism are often called. In 
later years, he often taught under its shade, and 
ever since his followers have held it sacred. A 
large one near the writer's home was broken down 
in a storm, and obstructed the road. Its " sacred " 
wood is of no use for building, and no one dared to 
use it for ordinary fuel. At last the head priest 
decided it could be used to burn brick for a new 
temple, and the broken tree was thus at length 
cleared away. I know of few finer examples of the 
noble tree than the one pictured in the frontispiece. 
Probably a congregation of a thousand people could 
be seated under the shade of its spreading branches. 
-. . Of larger game, there is much variety 

- ., in the forests of Siam. Hundreds of 

^ elephants are still found in a wild state, 

and carefully protected as one of the 
assets of the princes. The rhinoceros, too, is oc- 
casionally found. The wild ox, believed to be the 
progenitor of domestic cattle, is still found in the 
remote forests of the Laos states, and he is a 
magnificent beast. Quite as large and much more 



86 An Oriental Land of the Free 

common, is an enormous deer with antlers not un- 
like those of a stag. The native name for it is 
** quang/' The only other deer we often see is the 
tiny '' barking deer." Bears are fairly common, 
and leopards often make sad havoc among young 
cattle, buffaloes and pigs. But it is the Bengal 
tiger that is most generally and most justly feared. 
As a rule, he does not attack man, but once he has 
tasted human flesh he seems satisfied with nothing 
else. 

A -R/r -o ^ On their return from annual meeting 

A Man-Eat- . ^ , r r-u- ^/r • 

^. m Lakawn, a company of Chieng Mai 

missionaries camped in a rather 
lonely spot beside a stream. Nothing disturbed 
their rest, perhaps because a fire was kept up all 
night. Only a few nights later, a man was dragged 
from beside the fire at that very place, and carried 
off by an enormous tiger. From that time on, for 
months, that whole district was kept in terror by 
recurring instances of this tiger's boldness. Not 
less than twenty persons are said to have been 
killed, besides many cattle and pigs, by this fero- 
cious beast. Hunts were organized, and traps set, 
but he always eluded his pursuers. Whether 
eventually he was killed, or simply left the district, 
no one knows, but after a time his appearances 
ceased. The writer has several times seen a tiger's 
footprints on his travels, but never has seen or 
heard the monster himself, although several very 
large tigers have been shot in the district through 
which he travels. 





n|s» 



The Face of the Land 87 

Last but not least of the characteristic 
M n^k s ^'^^ animals of "the Land of the 
o^ ^ys pj-ee," we must mention the apes and 
monkeys whose peculiar, reechoing cries may often 
be heard among the mountains by day as well as 
by night. They seldom travel on the ground, but 
swing from tree top to tree top with a boldness 
that does not grow less marvelous as you watch it. 
Very large apes are sometimes kept as pets, and 
smaller ones, both black and white, are favorites of 
the children. In southern Siam, the long-tailed 
monkeys are very common in the jungles. Their 
grimaces and frolics are a constant amusement as 
one's boat creeps quietly along the narrow canals. 
They are also rather common in the north, but I 
have seldom seen them kept as pets. 

n^^ T> rr 1 The domestic animals of Siam are 

The Buffalo . . • ^.u tt v ^ 

much the same as m the United 

States. Horses and cattle, dogs and cats, chickens 
and Guinea fowl, pigs and goats, ducks, geese and 
turkeys — all are seen. But the most important of 
all their domestic animals is one never seen in 
America, the caribou or water buffalo. Although 
he is a close relative to the domestic cattle, he re- 
minds one of a gigantic pig, and often carries a hun- 
dredweight of earth that has stuck to him from his 
last mud bath. He is an ungainly beast, usually 
very slow in his movements, but when roused or 
angry his speed and his enormous horns make him 
dangerous. However, the care of this formidable 
and ugly beast is usually committed to some small 



88 An Oriental Land of the Free 

boy or girl, who sits the whole day long on his 
broad back to keep him out of the unfenced fields 
of growing rice. The child mounts from behind. 
Grasping the buffalo's tail, he steps on the project- 
ing joint of the hind leg, and with a spring and a 
scramble is soon seated, with perhaps two or three 
others, on the monster's broad back. Strange to 
say, these children are seldom seriously hurt by 
the buffaloes, and the ungainly creature is curiously 
amenable to the will of his tiny keeper. The 
buffalo's main duty is to pull the plow and harrow 
morning and evening for a couple of months in the 
year, but the animals are also used to some extent 
at other seasons in hauling logs and firewood. 
They are never killed for food, but when they die 
of disease, too often the owner makes good his loss 
by selling the tainted meat. Many people, though 
they know the danger, eat it because it is cheaper 
than slaughtered meat. 

The photograph has caught extremely well the 
timid, half-wild expression of these dangerous 
denizens of Asia, as they are startled from their 
noonday r^t on a sand bar of the Me Yom. 



CHAPTER VIII 

TRADE AND TRAVEL 

Th M • There are three main lines of travel 
^ - across the Laos states: overland from 

-^ Yunnan Province, China; overland to 

Maulmein in Burma; and up and down 
the river to Bangkok. Less important caravan routes 
radiate in every direction, reaching the remotest 
Laos valleys and their neighbors. Even when roads 
were beset by robbers, and neither life nor goods 
was secure, still trade along the main routes was 
constant. There was more danger by river than by 
land, so river trade was less then than now. As the 
country has become more settled, trade has fol- 
lowed the easier route, and trade by caravan across 
the mountains to Burma has relatively decreased. 
rp. TT Every year, soon after the heavy rains 

P are over, " English " walnuts are 

found in all the markets, sure sign that 
the " Haw " (or Yunnan Chinese) caravans of pack 
horses have begun to arrive. Not everyone is 
aware that China is the original home of these nuts. 
The Laos are very fond of them and so traders 
fill all vacant spaces in their packs. Their real 
loads consist of brass ware, felt blankets and furs, 
and sometimes opium. Also they usually bring 

89 



go An Oriental Land of the Free 

horses and mules for sale. Although in recent 

years some horses have been bred in Siam, the 

best horses are still, as in the past, brought from 

China. 

n^^ r^ J ^ Most of the " Haw " caravans, after 
The Road to ^ ,. - , v .. •! 

j^ tradmg along from city to city, go 

on to Burma, and bring back loads 
of European piece goods, hardware and provisions, 
bought in Maulmein. Some of these foreign goods 
they carry back with them to the north, but usually 
they sell them in the Laos m.arkets, and load up 
with Laos cotton and tobacco for the long journey 
back to Tali-Fu. The trip from Tali to Maulmein, 
via Chieng Mai and return could be made in six 
months, but trading along the way as the merchants 
do, probably eight to ten months are consumed in 
each round trip. Laos traders seldom go to Yun- 
nan, but toward Burma Laos caravans share the 
road with the " Haws.'* A considerable number of 
cattle are driven over for sale, and their price is 
brought back in foreign goods, carried either by bul- 
locks or porters, for the Laos as a rule do not use 
pack mules or pack horses. 

Trade with ^^^'^^^ Bangkok, the trading is 
Bangkok Partly by river, partly overland. 

^ Boats of some size can be used 

on the lower river, but it is difficult and ex- 
pensive to bring even the Laos boats up 
the rapids. Much of the coarser goods are 
therefore unloaded at Muang Teun, the point below 
the rapids nearest to Chieng Mai, and packed by 



Trade and Travel 91 

bullocks over the mountains. Hundreds of tons 
of salt are thus carried by bullocks that go back 
and forth all through the dry season. Salt is sel- 
dom brought by boat direct to Chieng Mai, partly 
because a boat loaded with salt is hard to manage 
in the rapids, and a slight leak soon destroys the 
salt. Dry fish and some other bulky commodities 
are brought in the same way. For the trip south- 
ward, these bullock trains often go empty, as the 
bulk of freight in that direction is far less. Some- 
times they carry hides, tobacco or lacquer ware ; 
more often their baskets are filled with " meeung/' 
wild tea leaves from the Laos hills that have been 
steamed and packed in bamboo joints, much as en- 
silage is packed in a silo. The Chinese and Siam- 
ese, as .well as the Laos, chew " meeung " and de- 
rive from it much the same gentle stimulation as 
from tea. 

■R 11 k ^^^y ^ai*ly ill the morning, one may hear 
^ . the musical tinkle of the bells, as the 

long trains of bullocks patiently plod up 
hill and down, through forest and stream, twenty 
days' journey from Muang Teun to Chieng Mai. 
Before nine A. M. they have finished their day's 
journey. The packs are lifted from their backs, 
and the cattle are allowed to feed through the heat 
of the day. Each bullock knows his own load, and 
before darkness gathers, finds his way back to his 
place. As darkness deepens, the camp fires, lighted 
at the end of each row of baskets to keep off wild 
beasts, gleam picturesquely against the dark back- 



92 An Oriental Land of the Free 

ground of forest. AH is arranged and moved with 

the regularity of an army encampment. 

^^ p Not only on this, but on all routes^ 

rJ' ^ ' these picturesque bullock trains 

Trade I r^ t, ^t, • 

are met. One year when the rice 

crop in Lakawn was scanty, I met dozens of them, 

those going east loaded with rice, those bound west 

hurrying back for a fresh load of the " staff of life." 

Two such trains collided in a narrow defile, and 

much confusion with endless shouting ensued ere 

the train could start once more. One bullock, more 

frisky than his neighbors, was so delighted to get 

safe out of the confusion, that he jumped to the 

path on the next ridge and rolled over and over, 

baskets and all, a hundred feet down till he struck 

a big tree. This set him free from his baskets and 

he jumped up none the worse for his adventure. 

-T r The overland trade from province to 

Humors of . . . . - ^ . 

r^ J provmce varies with the season, the 

crops and the circumstances. In a 
single day I met not less than thirty men, each 
carrying in baskets from four to ten little pigs. 
Evidently the crop of pigs had been short in 
Lakawn, or unusually abundant in Lampoon, and 
there was a profit of fifty cents each, enough to pay 
for the journey. In ]\Iarch, on any road leading out 
of Pre, there are many men loaded with Pre cotton 
and Pre tobacco, both of which find a market in all 
the other provinces, and even up in China. About 
the same time of year men come considerable dis- 
tances to purchase brown sugar from the Me Aouw 



Trade and Travel 93 

district of Chieng Mai, or palm sugar from the Me 
Tah valley. Just before the season for plowing 
begins, men carrying plowshares go out into the 
country. They come back loaded with leeks or 
peppers. 

Sales are usually for cash, but every trader wants 
a profit both ways on his journey, so he invests his 
proceeds in something he can sell in his home dis- 
trict. Gongs for the temples and bells for cattle, 
elephants and horses, are brought from Burma, 
brass ware from China, iron from Muang Long, 
saltpeter for powder from the caves in Ogre Moun- 
tain. 

All. through the season when the roads are good 
and farm work light, multitudes of men yield to 
the ** wanderlust " that is a marked feature of 
Laos life, and seek profit as well as pleasure in a 
trading expedition. Although maps are practically 
unknovv^n to the common people, men can talk in- 
telligently about the roads in every direction from 
their homes, often for hundreds of miles. 

Although many thus journey to Burma or 
China^ few settle there ; the longing for his own 
village, no less strong than a desire to see the world, 
draws the Laos man back to his native hills. 
j^^ - It remains to speak of the boat 

Tj. h "R t ^^^^^ ^P ^^d down the river. 
^ The rapids that render the Me 

Yom wholly unnavigable, are a serious obstacle to 
navigation in all the branches of the Me Nam. 
This boat traffic is largest on the Me Ping, the 



94 An Oriental Land of the Free 

western branch of the Me Nam on which Chieng 
Mai is situated, but even there, no boat captain 
would venture down the river with a full load. 
Each stage of water, high or low, has its peculiar 
difficulties and perils, and the heavier the load the 
more serious these dangers become. Cocoanuts 
are carried down and marketed in the lower river. 
Boat loads of hides are often seen, and almost every 
boat carries ** meeung," the steamed wild tea al- 
ready spoken of, which is used in lieu of small coin 
to purchase supplies along the river. Lacquer 
ware, stick-lac and other gums from the forests 
are also carried down, but heavy commodities are 
rarely seen in Laos trading boats on the down- 
river trip. 

^, _- p. On the return, the boats come 

^ * loaded to the gunwales with a wide 

variety of European goods, with 
salt fish from the sea and lower river, with Chinese 
bowls and Japanese matches, with American cot- 
ton and kerosene oil, with English prints and 
blankets, vvdth India muslins and German cutlery, 
wath bicycles and sewing machines. Even car- 
riages and automobiles are sometimes brought. 

And whence comes the money to pay for these 
goods? Largely from the rafts of teak logs that 
fill the lower river, and load hundreds of vessels 
each year for Europe. Teak is the only wood so 
far discovered that is absolutely impervious to 
water. Wash down a teak deck with fresh w^ater 
or salt, by hand or by the dash of the waves, and 




< 
X 

u 
•J 



h 



Trade and Travel 95 

the moment it is drained, it is dry. For decks, no 
real substitute for teak has been found ; and the in- 
creasing demand for it for main and promenade 
decks of ocean liners constantly enhances its price 
in the world's markets. Her forests are the main 
wealth of Siam and especially of the Laos states. 

-- — • Foreiraers who have been resl- 

How Foreigners . ^ . ^, t . ^ 1 

-, . dents m the Laos states always 

meet the question, " How do 
you travel?'* The answer may vary as much as 
the tastes and circumstances of the individual. We 
travel by all the conveyances that have been men- 
tioned; by boat, by elephant, by horse, in a sedan 
chair, on foot; our effects are carried by boat, by 
pack horses, pack mules or bullocks, by elephants, 
or most frequently of all by men who carry fifty to 
sixty pounds each in baskets over their shoulders. 
Travel by boat is well described in Mrs. Curtis' 
" The Laos of Northern Siam." To-day, by a rail- 
way journey of two days and an overland trip of 
eight to twelve days, it is possible to avoid the long 
up-river journey that usually occupies thirty to 
fifty days. Still, until the railway is completed to 
Chieng Mai, all freight and many travelers will con- 
tinue to take the slower route. Even when the rail- 
way comes, the wonderful scenery of the rapids 
and gorge of the Me Ping will still attract the 
traveler. 

Th Sh'o f ^ shall never forget my first journey 

the F St ^^ ^^^^ ^^ ^^ elephant. It was my 

first experience with these '' ships of 



96 An Oriental Land of the Free 

the forest." With surprise, I saw them unhesi- 
tatingly climb rocks and plunge down step river 
banks that no other beast of burden could even at- 
tempt. Their care and sure-footedness soon took 
away any fear of accident. In the comfortable 
howdah, one may lie down at full length, or sit and 
read or even write, if he will but accommodate him- 
self to the slovv^ swing of the elephant's tread. 
However, after the novelty wears ofif, most travel- 
ers prefer to ride a pony, for a good walker will 
easily keep ahead of a company of elephants. The 
young bamboo is a favorite food of these great 
beasts, and it is amusing to see your monster break 
off a stem some inches in diameter and a dozen 
feet in length, and contentedly munch it as he 
marches along, as a child would a stick of candy. 
In passing through the forests, a supply of the 
elephant's natural food, bamboo, coarse grass, 
banana stalk and palm leaves is usually at hand. 
Their forefeet hobbled together with a chain, they 
seldom wander far from camp, but if frightened or 
drawn on in search of food, or by wild elephants 
in the neighborhood, they may travel long dis- 
tances in the night, and lead their keepers a weary 
chase while the traveler waits for their return. If 
a baby elephant be in the company, he is sure to 
have much to amuse, sometimes to annoy you. 

^- -. . - Few horses are raised in Siam, 
The Ponies of , ^, ^ , ^ . 

„. and they seem to degenerate in 

that hot climate, but a supply of 

ponies is brought down from China each year. 



Trade and Travel 97 

Varying in size from a Shetland pony to a polo 
pony, they are seldom over thirteen hands in 
height, but they are wiry, active little beasts with 
their full share of deviltry. Year in and year out 
they are our most common and most reliable means 
of transport. Even when rains swell the streams, 
they will patiently swim behind the ferryboat, 
ready when it reaches land to carry us on to the 
next river. Some travelers also use pack horses or 
pack mules to carry their food, bedding and other 
impedimenta. Occasionally, when there is much 
freight it is carried at so much a hundred by cattle 
or elephants, but the ordinary dependence is upon 
men as carriers. They can always be had on 
short notice. They can go in many places 
where the track is impracticable for pack animals, 
and for the missionary there is the added advan- 
age that, when a company of carriers continues 
with him for weeks, he has a peculiar opportunity 
to influence their hearts and lives for Christ. 
Many of our Christian men received their first im- 
pressions of the truth, as they helped carry the 
" kit " of some missionary on his evangelistic tours. 



, CHAPTER IX 

GOVERNMENT PAST AND PRESENT AMONG THE LAOS 

" n > '* Until 1886 when the British were com- 
peJled by Burmese misrule to take 
upper Burma, "dacoity/' or robbery by bands of 
cutthroats, was common in Burmese territory. In 
other words, no small part of the Burmans lived by 
plundering their more peaceable neighbors. Even 
earlier than this, the firm hand of British rule had 
gradually narrowed the limits of these bandits, but 
only when Mandalay fell was it possible to suppress 
dacoity entirely. Forty or fifty years ago, seldom 
a year passed when some company of bandits did 
not gather among the almost inaccessible moun- 
tains along the eastern border of Burma, swoop 
down on some unsuspecting Laos valley, drive off 
the cattle, carry off men and women to a life of 
slavery, burn the villages, and carry terror to an 
area far wider than the actual scene of their depre- 
dations. 
— , _ Although the Laos are a peaceable agri- 

. cultural people, when once aroused 

in A.rms x x ^ 

they are no mean antagonists. In re- 
cent years, a Laos constabulary, organized and 
drilled by foreign officers, has shown itself admir- 

98 



Government Past and Present 99 

able in discipline and in other soldierly qualities, 
and has done much to render life and property se- 
cure in the Laos states of Siam. In the past as 
well, given time to rally ^ and oppose their enemies, 
the Laos villagers often defeated them and drove 
them back. A narrow glen — one of the, wildest 
and most beautiful I have ever seen^ — that le5,ds up 
to a pass in the mountains west of the city of Nan 
is known as " Hooie See Pun,'' the " Ravine of the 
Four Thousand." The story goes that four thou- 
sand Burmans, on plunder bent, • were met- and ^ 
annihilated in this defile by the men of Nan. 

-^ . - In such raids as these, whole villages 

Results of • ^ 1 ^- 11 J 

^ . were wiped out, entire valleys depopu- 

^ lated, for not only were many killed 

by the robbers or carried ofif as slaves, but the 
survivors fled to the forests and dared not re- 
turn. There, jungle fever, dysentery and other 
diseases, due to exposure, carried ofif children 
and adults by the score. Often the stock of rice 
was burned, and, since the cattle were driven ofif 
or killed, the survivors could not work their fields. 
Famine followed in the wake of war. A hundred 
and forty years ago, a Burmese army plundered 
and burned the cities of Chieng Mai and Lampoon, 
and for fifty years after that raid that whole plain, 
the largest and richest in the Laos states, was al- 
most depopulated. A later raid, this time by the 
Siamese, destroyed Chieng Rai, and the old Laos 
capital, Chieng Saan. Chieng Saan has never been 
rebuilt, and Chieng Rai is only now recovering. 



100 An Oriental Land of the Free 

^ The Laos tribes and princes retaliated 

P . - when they could. A successful raid to 

the north and west headed by the king 
of Chieng Mai brought many captives back to help 
repopulate the Chieng Mai Lampoon plain. Half 
the people of Lampoon province to-day are de- 
scendants of these subjects of the King of Burma 
who were thus brought down from the region of 
Keng Tung. Kun and Yawng, they are called, but 
they are Laos- all, differing only very slightly in 
speech, in customs, or in dress, from the other 
people of the plain. 

^. The forced immigrants of whom I have 

^ just spoken were not held as slaves, 
though slavery has always been common through- 
out Indo-China. The lot of a slave has not usually 
been a hard one, for he was usually given a home 
he could call his own and time to cultivate a piece 
of land. Sometimes, for months together, his lord 
would not "call" him; again his time might be 
wholly occupied in the service of his master. In 
the latter case, the slave usually received some 
slight money compensation, or its equivalent in a 
present. Three kinds of slaves have been rec- 
ognized by law: hereditary slaves, slaves taken in 
war and debt slaves. Debt slaves have always 
been able to redeem themselves, though the pro- 
cess was made so difficult that few succeeded in 
doing so until a generation ago. Increasing pros- 
perity, the influence of foreigners who have often 
paid redemption money and allowed the debtor to 



Government Past and Present loi 

work it out, together with some change in the laws, 
have steadily improved conditions. A number of 
years ago, the enlightened King of Siam declared 
that all children born of slave parents after that 
date should be free, but this provision has never 
been fully enforced in the Laos states. The 
" chow," or native princes, are the principal slave- 
holders and, naturally, since they are the judges, 
every obstacle has been placed in the way of 
emancipation. Still, as Siamese rule has become 
more direct in the north, slavery is fast disappear- 
ing. 

^j . Forty years ago misgovernmenr at 

^ . home made worse the insecurity of 

life and property due to robber raids. 
At that time, and to a less extent even ten years 
ago, it was unwise for a Laos " man of the people '^ 
to betray in any way the possession of property. 
If he built a better house, or a new rice bin, if he 
acquired more cattle than were necessary to work 
his bit of rice plain, only a generous bribe to the 
petty prince, or *' chow,'' on whom he was depend- 
ent, could save him from ruinous taxation or a 
forced loan. If his bananas or vegetables were 
better than those of his neighbors, a minion of the 
" chow " was almost sure to stop his wife or 
daughter on the way to market, and relieve her of 
the best of the content:^ of her baskets. For pro- 
duce thus taken, payment was seldom made, and 
there was no redress. His person was hardly more 
safe than his property. 



102 An Oriental Land of the Free 

. - The Laos are often called lazy, un- 

- - ^ justly, I think. Xo man who is not 

Laos Lazy? ' \, , , , , , 

compelled to do so, Vv'orks regularly 

if he does not expect to receive the fruit of his 
labor. When the conditions I have just described 
were prevalent, what possible motive was there 
for industry or thrift? Conditions have changed, 
but the habits of a lifetime are difficult to change. 
The older men are still indolent, but a spirit of in- 
dustry and thrift has grown greatly among the 
younger men in the past fifteen years. Xow well- 
built frame houses with tile roofs are to be found 
in almost every village, better vegetables and fruits 
are in the markets, a better quality of foreign 
goods is dem.anded; the vrhole country is more 
prosperous. These advances have been brought 
about largely by the change in governmental con- 
ditions noted in the next paragraphs. 

_, -., - Up to 182S the Laos princes ruled their 
The Old "^ 1 N • .• xi, -J 

^, . own peoole. At various times thev paid 

Regime ^-t ..-n. 

tribute, or sent presents, to Burma, to 

Cambodia, to Pegu, to the Kings of Siam; not in- 
frequently to two or more of them at the same time. 
One district and its people, novr ruled by Great 
Britain, derives its name, '*' Sam Tow'' (or *' Three 
Allegiances '*') from the fact that it sent tribute 
more or less regularly to Burma, to China and to 
Siam. These various claims of their neighbors had 
never been efirectively or continuously enforced. 
The princes themselves probably looked on the gifts 
sent merely as a sort of insurance. Had a real 



Government Past and Present 103 

leader arisen, he might have built up a permanent 
and independent Laos empire, but whether in war 
or in peace, the Laos have never long been united. 
At different times, the King of Chieng Saan, of 
Lampoon, of Sawankaloke, of Bassak or of Wieng 
Chan, has been recognized as '* King of the Laos," 
but usually for only a short time consecutively. 

About one hundred years ago, the King of Wieng 
Chan, a city on the Cambodia River, some three 
hundred miles northeast of Bangkok, was regarded 
by the Siamese, justly, perhaps, as the King of all 
the Laos. He had at times given tribute or pres- 
ents to the King of Siam. Later he refused it. 
The result was a war, in 1828, in which the city of 
Wieng Chan was destroyed and its inhabitants 
carried off in a body as war captives. The de- 
scendants of these captives are still held as the 
slaves of Siam, attached to the royal palace and 
temples in Pechaburee. (How the edicts of eman- 
cipation have affected them, I do not know.) 

^ . . - The Siamese seem to have claimed that 

Origin of ,, - ,,^. ^, 

^. the capture of Wieng Chan gave them 

j^ . authority over all the Laos. Whether 

their claim be based on that, or on 
previous conditions, matters little: the fact is that 
most of the Laos states have pretty regularly ac- 
knowledged some measure of subjection to Siam 
ever since. At first, little more than the right of 
investiture with golden betel box and other in- 
signia of authority, and stated visits of ceremony to 
Bangkok with certain formal presents, was re- 



104 An Oriental Land of the Free 

quired of the princes in the north. Even these 
shadowy signs of subjection were never regularly- 
enforced east and north of the Cambodia River, or 
north of Chieng Saan. Still the King of Siam at 
times claimed sovereignty all the way to the bor- 
ders of China. 

j^ . Over the nearer Laos states, Siamese 

, T • authority was gradually more effec- 

p- tively enforced. Twenty years ago, 

the power of life and death had al- 
ready been taken from the Laos princes, and a 
Siamese official, known to English residents as the 
Siamese commissioner, was located at the capital 
of each province. Nominally merely the adviser of 
the Laos ruler, these commissioners gradually 
drew closer the bonds that united the Laos states 
to the kingdom of Siam. In 1895, when the writer 
first went to Nan, the authority of the Siamese 
commissioner in that province was still rather 
shadowy, though even then orders from Bangkok 
were rapidly becoming the real power in Chieng 
Mai and Lakawn. Opposition to Siamese author- 
ity and methods was the real cause of the so-called 
" Shan Rebellion ^' in 1902, but the suppression of 
that uprising was the occasion for measures that 
have made Siamese rule effective in every hamlet 
within the boundaries of the kingdom. 

T^-jcc 1^' Doubtless the Laos people are to-day 
Difficulties - ^. i o- 

r , more or less restive under Siamese 

«. rule. However good their intentions, 

Siamese officials are dealing with a 

people who look on them as foreigners, and who do 



Government Past and Present 105 

not appreciate that many of the acts of these for- 
eigners are for their own real advantage. For 
instance, when roads are planned, they are made 
by men who see only the hardship of enforced un- 
paid labor, often far from home, and at a season 
when their own interests suffer by their absence. 
Moreover, owing to the lack of intelligent admin- 
istrators, few enough under any government, rules 
for the direction of these workmen must sometimes 
be enforced to the letter, if they are to be enforced 
at all. A rule good in the main often involves un- 
necessary labor and hardship where an admin- 
istrator with discretion as to details could modify 
it to advantage. Only as we realize the difficulties 
under which it labors, can we appreciate the real 
results of Siamese rule. What have some of these 
results been? 

r^ n ^ First. Life and property in the Laos 

Beneficent , , .1 1 

p - p states are more secure than under 

^. p - the rule of the native princes. 

Police regulations are better and 
better enforced. The Laos constabulary or 
gendarmerie, trained under Danish officers, is 
an increasingly efficient body of men. Enforce- 
ment of a uniform law, instead of the different laws 
of several states, has in itself brought better order. 
The Siamese law is not in all respects an improve- 
ment; especially as regards marriage and the 
family, the old Laos customs were better. We 
may hope that the recently enacted criminal code, 
which seeks to adapt to the East the best in the 
laws of the West, may prove better than either. 



io6 An Oriental Land of the Free 

The new courts, too, are far better than the old. 
Far from perfect, of course, they are good in prin- 
ciple and fairly well administered. On the whole, 
then, life and property are more secure than under 
the old regime. 

Second. The country is more prosperous. Taxes 
and exactions, especially enforced labor, may at 
times bear hard on the people. Public improve- 
ments may have been pushed faster than was wise, 
involving serious hardship to many. Pay promised 
for labor has in some cases not been forthcoming. 
The fact remains that taxes are miore uniform, more 
certain and more just, than under the rule of the 
princes. Prosperity and a sense of security are 
shown in the better houses that are everywhere 
being built. Better methods of agriculture, better 
facilities for transport and trade, have come with 
new roads. 

Third. Good beginnings have been made in pub- 
lic education, in the suppression of slavery and 
gambling, in systems of account and record, in all 
that constitutes the outward forms of modern civil- 
ization. The king and his advisers have made mis- 
takes, but the fact remains that His Majesty the 
King of Siam is justly spoken of as one of the most 
progressive and wisest statesmen in Asia; that the 
changes quietly introduced and effectively carried 
out by the Siamese in the north during the last 
twenty years are a marvel to one who has seen 
both the old regime and the new. 



CHAPTER X 

THE COMING OF THE GOSPEL 

The Pioneers ^"^ J^^""^ ^^' ^^^^' ^"^^ ^^^""^ 
Americans landed together at the 

port of Bangkok, Siam, who were destined to con- 
tinue for more than fifty years in that far-away 
tropical land associations begun in student days in 
Princeton. They were Rev. Daniel McGilvary and 
Rev. Jonathan Wilson, both of whom, after fifty- 
one years of service in the Land of the White 
Elephant, are still (1909) actively engaged in the 
work they love. Ere we trace the later history, 
let us consider for a moment the conditions of 
missionary work in Siam when they reached Bang- 
kok in 1858. 

T, . . r While the grates of China were 

Beginmngs of ^.„ t t . . . rr ^ 

■n/r- • xrr i still closcd to missiouarv eiTort, 

Mission Work . ^, ^1 t^ .. . 1 .1 a 

. ^. both the Baptist and the Amer- 

in Siam . 1. 1 ^ • • • x 

lean boards sent missionaries to 

work among the Chinese residents of Bangkok. 

The Baptists have in a measure continued this 

work among the Chinese, and have to-day several 

Chinese and Peguan-speaking churches in and near 

Bangkok. However, when the doors of China were 

opened, most of these workers were transferred to 

that empire. In 1818, Mrs. Ann Hazeltine Judson 

set herself to acquire the Siamese language and 

107 



io8 An Oriental Land of the Free 

translated a catechism and the Gospel of Matthew 

into that tongue. It was printed at Serampore the 

following year, but for a long time thereafter Siam 

was still regarded mainly as a point of approach to 

China. 

y.. . The first missionaries to direct 

^, ^. their efforts mainly to the Siamese 

the Siamese ^, , ^ i ^i, a 

themselves were sent by the Amer- 
ican board. D. B. Bradley, M. D., whose long, 
varied and fruitful labors in Siam entitle him to 
be considered the father of missions there, reached 
Bangkok in 1835, and continued in the work until 
his death in 1873. At that time (1835), the Amer- 
ican board drew its support and its missionaries 
from Presbyterian as well as Congregational 
churches, and later, when the fields of labor were 
divided, responsibility for the evangelization of 
Siam and its people was assumed by the Presby- 
terian Church. Therefore, though several of the 
earliest and most influential of the early mission- 
aries were Congregationalists, it is generally rec- 
ognized that the Laos as well as the Siamese are 
peculiarly a Presbyterian field. Practically no 
other church is at work there. 

-_. , Before Messrs. McGilvary and 

Missons and ,-,.., • 1 . o- 1 1 

^ . , T^ VVilson arrived m Siam, schools 

Social Progress , ^ u ^ £ u ^u u 

had been opened for both boys 

and girls, and medical work had helped to open the 
doors. Perhaps the most far-reaching result of the 
work had been due to the fact that Rev. Jesse Cas- 
well was invited to act for some years as the tutor 



The Coming of the Gospel 109 

of the prince who afterwards became King of Siam. 
While neither he nor his son, the present progres- 
sive ruler of Siam, accepted Christianity, they al- 
ways showed the utmost friendliness to the mission- 
aries and their work, and they sought and followed 
their advice in the effort to bring morals and social 
conditions in Siam into line with the best standards 
the West has to offer. The abolition of slavery, 
vaccination, the institution of public hospitals and 
schools, and the abolition of public gambling, are 
some of the changes that are traceable in no small 
measure to the influence of American missionaries. 
As a Siamese prince expressed it, " Siam has been 
opened to the world, not by the guns of western 
nations, but by the American missionaries." 

The Situation ^" ^ 858 while very few had openly 
^ ^ accepted Christ (m fact, the mis- 

sionaries who arrived in 1858 wit- 
nessed the baptism of the first Siamese convert), 
influences had nevertheless been set at work that 
have profoundly affected the morals and policies of 
Siam ever since. The organized work of the mis- 
sion at that time was still confined to the capital 
itself, and Mr. McGilvary, in association with Rev. 
S. G. McFarland, was privileged in 1861 to share 
in opening at Petchaburee, ninety miles west of 
Bangkok, the first outside station. He soon came 
in contact there with the Laos captives who, at the 
capture of Wieng Chan in 1828, had been brought 
down as war captives and attached as serfs to the 
royal palace and temples at Petchaburee. Becom- 



no An Oriental Land of the Free 

ing interested in them, his heart went out in the 
desire to carry the gospel to their brethren in the 
far-away north country. He asked and obtained 
permission from the mission and from the Siamese 
Government to visit the Laos states in 1863. He 
came back fully determined to follow God's leading 
into that distant land. Rev. Jonathan Wilson 
joined him in the request to the mission and to the 
board at home for permission to begin work in 
Chieng Mai, then as now, the largest city in the 
Laos states. The permission was granted. April 
Opening of i, 1867, found Rev. Daniel McGil- 
the Laos vary with Mrs. McGilvary and two 

Mission children in Chieng Mai, and Rev. 

Jonathan Wilson and Mrs. Wilson joined them a 
year later. That first year was one of much trial 
and yet of great opportunity. Until more per- 
manent quarters could be obtained, the King of 
Chieng Mai granted them the use of a " sala " or 
rest house in the market place. There, under the 
shade of a spreading banyan tree, surrounded by 
all the confusion of an eastern market place, in a 
building that afforded little privacy, and imperfect 
protection from the rays of a tropical sun, the first 
year was passed. Visitors were constant and seed 
was sown that brought forth fruit, not in Chieng 
Mai alone, but in distant provinces as well. 
^. J Messrs. Wilson and McGilvary, hav- 

J ing lived for nme years m lower 

xt- o- * Siam, were familiar with the 

the Siamese o- 1 rj.< 

Siamese language. Then, as now. 



The Coming of the Gospel iii 

the Siamese claimed suzerainty over the Laos, and 
there was an increasing use of the Siamese lan- 
guage and desire to learn it among the people. 
Much of the Bible had already been translated into 
Siamese, and missionary work was begun through 
the medium of that language. Indeed, for many 
years it was assumed that the translation of the 
Scriptures into the Laos language was unnecessary. 
But as a Christian Laos community grew up, the 
demand for a Laos Christian literature grew in force 
and urgency. Not only are the differences in vo- 
cabulary, word forms and idiom, very considerable, 
but the written character is wholly different. After 
some years, Laos type was devised, and the twenty- 
fifth anniversary of the opening of the mission was 
marked by the publication of Matthew and a 
catechism in the Laos character. While the use of 
Siamese is now rapidly increasing among the Laos 
people in Siam, those outside the borders of Siam — - 
more than half of all the Laos people — know noth- 
ing of Siamese. The mission press at Chieng Mai 
is the only establishment in the world that can now 
print the Laos character, and the work it does for 
the government with the sale of our own literature, 
makes it entirely self-supporting. The day is prob- 
ably far distant when the Siamese language will 
replace that of the Laos in our work. 

TT TTT 1 The first missionaries did not find 

How Work ,.^ , , 

j5 aiiterences oi language a serious 

barrier, but quickly found a way to 

the hearts of the kindly Laos race. Prediction of 



112 An Oriental Land of the Free 

an eclipse helped to break one of the common super- 
stitions, and led to the conversion of Nan Inta, the 
first Laos man to receive Christian baptism. Vac- 
cination, the use of quinine and other simple 
remedies, and kindness shown to the sick, won the 
confidence of others. But conversation with the 
visitors that crowded their homes, as well as with 
those whom the missionaries visited in their own 
homes — quiet personal evangelism — was the means 
most used of God to bring the Laos people to 
Christ. Bazaar preaching, or any preaching to 
large crowds, has never been a prominent feature 
of work among the Laos. School work was soon 
begun for the children of those who had shown in- 
terest in the gospel, but then as now, few children 
from non-Christian homes were enrolled in the 
schools. A Christian primary school within the 
reach of every Christian Laos boy or girl has been 
our aim, and even in our higher schools few " out- 
siders " are enrolled, and but little effort has been 
put forth to make our schools a direct evangelizing 
agency. However, this has been due to the lack of 
sufficient teaching force, rather than to a distinct 
policy of the mission. 

« -n. Ti/r r^'1 » Very soon after his arrival, 
" Dr. McGilvary's -^^ iv/r r^-i t_ .11 

J rp 5, Dr. McGilvary began the long 

tours that took him withinlfive 
or six years into every Laos province where organ- 
ized work has since been done. Till he was past 
seventy years of age, his rule was to spend the dry 
season of each year in a tour to distant provinces, 



The Coming of the Gospel 113 

or outlying districts where the gospel had not yet 
been heard, or where he could reach some visitor 
to his home in Chieng Mai who had gone back with 
some knowledge of the truth. In these journeys 
he explored a territory larger than Indiana and 
Ohio combined, that had been up to that time prac- 
tically unknown to the world. The writer will 
never forget the return of Dr. McGilvary from the 
last and perhaps the longest of these long tours. 
He had seen the vision of French Laos won for 
Christ as never before, but had been compelled by 
opposition from the government to relinquish most 
promising work there for the time, at the very be- 
ginning of the rains. For more than a month on 
the return journey he was never long dry by day, 
often not at night; again and again he swam his 
horse over the swollen streams, and it is a marvel 
how the Master preserved the life and health of 
his aged servant on that long and perilous journey. 
We hope that soon his own story of those pioneer 
days and journeys may be in the hands of the 
church. 
p . Though trials and hardships had 

J -n. j.'u from the first been faced both by the 
and Death ... . , , 

missionaries and by the new con- 
verts, open persecution did not arise until seven 
converts had been baptized and many others had 
shown a deep interest in the gospel message. The 
King of Chieng Mai had favored the coming of the 
missionaries, and promised to his suzerain, the 
King of Siam, to protect them; he rather suddenly 



114 An Oriental Land of the Free 

became a bitter opponent of the work. Dr. McGil- 
vary called upon him to ask the reason of this op- 
position. The answer was in substance, " Go on, 
teaching if you will, I cannot prevent it; but just as 
soon as any of my people accept your religion, off 
go their heads." The story of that persecution will 
appear at length in the memoirs Dr. McGilvary 
will soon publish. The king did kill two of the 
seven Christians, and would have killed the rest 
had they not hidden or fled. They were " all scat- 
tered abroad except the apostles " (the mission- 
aries), but, "they that were scattered abroad went 
about preaching the word," quietly and secretly, 
indeed, but none the less effectively. The boldness 
of the martyrs in the face of death and their unfal- 
tering witness for Christ, had influenced their very 
executioners. 

^ , ^. Thous^h the lives of the mission- 
Proclamation . ^ - - ^. . 

p Ti 1- • aries were for a long time m 

of Religious - ^ .1 1 ;i 

T -1. J. J. ^^ danger, and though they were 
Liberty to the ^ ' .,, , ^ , ^^ ^. 

_ '^ urged to withdraw for the time, 

they still remained at their post. 
God's hand was laid on the persecuting king and 
within a year he was dead. The daughter who suc- 
ceeded him was more favorable to mission work, 
and both she and her consort were to the end 
warmly friendly to the missionaries. Still a crisis 
came again in 1878, when two Christians whose 
relatives were still demon-worshipers, wished to 
marry without the customary offerings to the 
demons. An appeal was finally made to the King 



The Coming of the Gospel 115 

of Siam. His answer was the " Proclamation of 
Religious Liberty to the Laos," that has since been 
to the Laos Christians the charter of their liberties. 
While there have since been several cases of long 
imprisonment on false charges and many cases of 
petty, persecutions, and while even to-day the lot of 
the new Christian is often far from easy, open per- 
secution has ceased. 

- ^, . An early — perhaps the earliest — be- 
Lengthenmg -. .it ^1 11 

fli r H liever among the Laos, though bap- 

tized later than some others, was 
San Ya We Chai, a resident in Chieng Saan, an old 
capital of the Laos, one hundred and fifty miles 
north and east of Chieng Mai. He had been a fre- 
quent visitor at the " rest house '^ in the market 
place in Chieng Mai during the first year of Dr. 
McGilvary's work. At that time, business had 
kept him temporarily in that city. By word of 
mouth, and through the printed Siamese Scriptures 
which he could read with some difficulty, he had 
gained some definite knowledge and conviction of 
the truth as it is in Jesus. On his return to his 
home in the north, he became the nucleus and 
leader of a circle of believers in the old capital. A 
few years later Dr. McGilvary visited him there, 
and organized into a Christian church the group of 
believers in Chieng Saan — the first church at a dis- 
tance from Chieng Mai. Out of that little band 
have grown the six organized churches within the 
bounds of Chieng Rai station. Even before a mis- 
sionary was resident there, the membership had be- 



ii6 An Oriental Land of the Free 

come three hundred. No other part of the Laos 
field is showing to-day as rapid and vigorous 
growth as that district. This is partly due to the 
fact that it is rapidly filling up by immigration from 
more crowded districts; for released in a measure 
from the restraint of custom and kinship, the im- 
migrant is peculiarly open to new truth. A part of 
the growth is also due to the fact that, from the 
first, the spirit of that church has been peculiarly 
self-helpful. 

Strengthening ^" ^^^^' ^' ^' Vrooman, M. D., 
, «^ , joined the band of pioneers in 

Chieng Mai, and definite organized 
medical missionary work was begun there. Al- 
though Dr. Vrooman remained but two years, he 
shared in at least one of Dr. McGilvary's long tours 
and so carried to distant provinces some knowledge 
of foreign medicine. Marion A. Cheek, M. D., 
succeeded him, and was instrumental in gathering 
the means for a hospital building. 

The recovery from the effects of the persecution 
was at first slow, but eventually — as in other lands 
• — the blood of the martyrs was the seed of the 
church. Some time since, seventy-three descend- 
ants, to the third and fourth generation, of Noi 
Soonya, one of the martyrs, were on the rolls of 
the churches in Chieng Mai province. It was not, 
however, until about 1885 that accessions to the 
church began to be large. The membership in- 
creased from 152 in 1884 to 1841 in 1894. 

During these years, a considerable number of 



The Coming of the Gospel 117 

native evangelists were employed by the mission, 
and its first and noblest native minister was 
ordained to the gospel ministry. Kroo Nan Ta 
had been for years the favorite of the king among 
all the Buddhist monks, and was probably the most 
learned among them all. Even after he became a 
Christian, any question of Buddhist philosophy was 
apt to be referred to him by his old associates. Be- 
fore the persecution he had become a secret be- 
liever, and his friendship for the missionaries was 
so well known that he was compelled to flee. For 
nearly ten years he wandered to distant lands. As 
a monk he had practiced the sternest austerities 
known to Buddhist asceticism. He had gone once 
from Chieng Mai to Lampoon, eighteen miles, 
measuring his length on the ground like a measur- 
ing worm, and was accounted peculiarly holy. wStill 
his heart could find no rest. He returned to 
Chieng Mai and declared himself a follower of 
Christ. Already a learned man and familiar with 
the Christian Scriptures, he soon became the right- 
hand man of the missionaries in evangelistic work. 
With tireless energy and zeal he traveled up and 
down the land. Welcomed in Buddhist temples 
and in the homes of princes as no other of our 
evangelists could be, he was no less welcome in the 
home of the lowliest, until worn out in his labor 
of love, he fell asleep in 1898. 

T^ , ^ ^ In 1877, a venerable man, evi- 

Bread Cast on a ^^ \ w u 1 x xi. 

, ™. dently of high rank, came to the 

physician in Chieng Mai asking 



ii8 An Oriental Land of the Free 

medicine for his deafness, and referred to the cure 
Christ had wrought on a deaf man. He was a high 
official at the court in Lakawn who, twenty years 
before, had received Christian books from Dr. 
Bradley in Bangkok. He had read and pondered, 
and, so far as he could understand, had given in- 
ward assent to the truth, but in all those twenty 
years of steadfast adherence to what he understood, 
he had found no one to teach him. The skill of 
the physician was blessed to his recovery. He 
gave his heart to Christ and was baptized, the first 
fruits of Lakawn for Christ. As soon as he was 
known to be a Christian, he was ordered back to 
Lakawn. He said, " If they want to kill me be- 
cause I worship Christ, I will let them pierce me.*' 
His life was spared, but office, wealth, friends and 
social position were taken away. Yet the aged 
man remained firm. His consistent stand for 
Christ led the missionaries to send evangelists to 
begin work in his province of Lakawn. 
r\ - £ I^ 1885, Rev. Jonathan Wilson 

_ , ^ -,^ . and Dr. and Mrs. Peoples 

Lakawn Station , . . 1 . f • 

opened there the second station 

of the Laos mission. Though from two to four 

missionary families have been at work there now 

for over twenty years, and promising boarding 

schools both for girls and for boys, as well as most 

successful medical missionary work, have helped to 

sow the seed, the work has proved harder and less 

immediately fruitful than in some other provinces. 

The poverty of the people, due to repeated crop 



The Coming of the Gospel 119 

failures and famine, has had something to do with 
this. Still, in proportion to their numbers and 
means, no church among the Laos surpasses the 
three hundred Christians in Lakawn church in their 
gifts to the work of the Lord. The new hospital 
and new buildings for the schools erected by the 
generosity of friends, have given added facilities 
for all departments of the work. Lakawn is the 
present objective point of the railway to the north, 
and not improbably will be made the center of gov- 
ernment for the Laos states when it reaches there. 
From the standpoint of mission work, as well as 
business and government, Lakawn is likely to be 
relatively more important in the future than in the 
past. Moreover, it is hoped that the reconstruction 
of an old dam and system of ditches, destroyed 
many years ago in a great flood, has removed the 
danger of famine that has hung over the province 
for a generation. 

The famine of 1893 affected not 
Famine and only Lakawn province, but Pre 

a New Station as well. Considerable sums of 

money were sent to the mission- 
aries to be used in the relief of suffering. Kindness 
thus shown opened the hearts of many in both prov- 
inces to the gospel message, and additions to the 
force of the mission that year made it possible to 
open a new station in Pre. Circumstances have 
interfered with the steady progress of work, 
and no missionary has for several years re- 
sided there, but the mission feels that work there 



I20 An Oriental Land of the Free 

must be pressed and expects the coming year to 

place missionaries once more in that inviting field. 

--- 1 . XT As early as 1872, and several times 

Work in Nan . . ^ ^ tA ^/r r-M a 

-^ . m later years, Dr. McGilvary and 

his associates visited the city and 
province of Nan. In area and population it is sec- 
ond only to Chieng Mai among the Laos states of 
Siam, possibly not to that. Its rulers have been 
the noblest of the Laos princes, men of dignity and 
ability, who retained longer than the other princes 
a considerable independence of Siamese authority. 
More conservative than other provinces, it has pre- 
sented some special difficulties to the messengers 
of the cross. In 1895 Dr. and Mrs. Peoples, who 
had shared in opening the work in Lakawn, asked 
and gained the consent of the mission to open in 
Nan the fourth station. At present the church in 
that province reports a membership of one hundred 
and ninety with five out-stations. The church that 
supports Mrs. Peoples has recently supplemented 
the gifts of the native church, and erected there a 
memorial chapel that worthily represents the gos- 
pel to all passers by, and is more adequate to their 
needs than the crowded chapels in most of our 
stations and out-stations. 

p, . p . In December, 1896, the mission ap- 
andThe Poi^ted Rev. W. C. Dodd and C. H. 

-- . - Denman, M. D., to open the station 

_. - ^ in Chieng Rai that it had long 

planned for. Unlike most new sta- 
tions, Chieng Rai w^as not a new field ; it was one 
where the growth of the work from small begin- 



I 



The Coming of the Gospel 121 

nings had become too large and too important to be 
managed at long range. As Mr. Phraner once put 
it, it was as if the pastor of a great and growing 
church in San Francisco should reside in New 
York and be able to make to it only brief and oc- 
casional visits. The growth of the work since the 
opening of Chieng Rai as a station, has been steady 
and constant. The immigration from other prov- 
inces to repeople the districts devastated by war 
early in the century, has given to the workers there 
a population exceptionally open to the influences of 
the gospel. Thus in 1897 the organized work of 
the mission had measurably covered that part of, 
Siam known distinctively as the Laos states. 
However, along the lower course of the Cambodia 
River is a vast area wholly Laos, but as yet wholly 
untouched by missionary effort. The same may be 
said of the Laos population of Muang Tahk or 
Raheng. Only half the Laos territory of Siam it- 
self has as yet been touched in any way by our 
mission work. 

•^ , . In his earlier tours, Dr. Mc- 

p h T 'f Gilvary had several times 

^ crossed the Mekong or Cam- 
bodia River, and in 1873 had visited Luang Pra- 
bang, now the capital of French Laos. In 1893, 
in company with the Rev. Robert Irvin, he made a 
long tour to the north following the course of the 
Cambodia River, well into Chinese territory. In 
1897, when Dr. Peoples was his travel companion, 
most of their time was spent in French territory. 
A special opening for the gospel was discovered 



122 An Oriental Land of the Free 

among the Kah Mook, the hill tribe from whom 
the timber companies draw many of their forest 
workers. These people are not Laos, but most of 
the men understand the Laos tongue. Both Dr. 
McGilvary and Dr. Peoples urged upon the mission 
at its next meeting the call for a new station in 
French territory, primarily for the Kah Mook who 
had shown such eagerness to receive the gospel 
message, but also for the more numerous Laos peo- 
ple among whom they dwell. Permission to open 
a station has never been obtained from the French 
Government, and serious obstacles have been put 
in the way of any organized work there. But visits 
by Dr. McGilvary in 1899, Dr. Dodd in 1901, and 
by Messrs. Campbell and McKay in 1904, have 
helped to maintain the interest first aroused. 
This year (1909) the Laos native church voted to 
make that their own mission field. A hundred 
communicants, faithful amid many difficulties as 
well as many inquirers, call for the earnest prayer 
of the church for this orphan company of believers 
three hundred miles from any other Christians, 
whom the selfish policy of the French has forbid- 
den the missionary to visit. 

-^ , . Meantime, the thought and effort of 

^ . . - the mission and of the native church 

rj, . had been turned in another direction, 

^ toward Keng Tung, the center of Laos 
population in British territory. An exploring tour 
carried out in 1897 by Messrs. Dodd, Briggs and 
Irwin, led the mission, in December, 1898, to ask 
permission of the board to open a station there as 



The Coming of the Gospel 123 

well as in French territory. From that time native 
evangeHsts or missionaries, or both, have visited 
British territory each dry season, and in 1904 or- 
ganized work was begun in Keng Tung city. The 
Baptists of Burma looked upon this as in some 
sense an invasion of their territory. Circumstances 
have led the board to yield to them, and with- 
draw the resident missionaries from that city, al- 
though we still carry on the work in the province 
by frequent tours from Chieng Rai. 
^ . . In at least four different tours our 
p, . ^ missionaries have crossed the Chinese 
_, . border and found the people friendly, 

^ accessible, and willing to listen to the 
gospel, but no organized or permanent work has 
ever been undertaken there, nor can it be, until we 
are ready to open a permanent station. Our mis- 
sionaries in Keng Tung came constantly in contact 
with trading caravans, who told them that for a 
distance as far to the north as Raheng lay to the 
south (four hundred and fifty miles by road, or three 
hundred and fifty as the crow flies) the Laos lan- 
guage and character are still in use in market and 
monastery alike. Although a vigorous native church 
of four thousand communicants has been gathered 
in the district within reach of our mission stations, 
the great bulk of the Laos people, and of the terri- 
tory they occupy, is still totally untouched by the 
gospel. 

Is the Presbyterian Church in the United States 
of America planning for anything less than the con- 
quest of the whole Laos people for Christ? 



CHAPTER XI 

TOURING AND TEACHING 

— - . . - Mention has already been made of 
_. . " long tours '' to the north and east 

^ by Dr. McGilvary and others, that re- 

vealed how vast is the territory yet to be possessed, 
how wide open many of the doors. This chapter 
will speak rather of regular touring work within 
the limits of each station. I put touring and teach- 
ing together to emphasize the fact that, save in dis- 
tricts where no organized work has been done, the 
work of teaching occupies a larger share of the mis- 
sionary's time than the direct proclamation of the 
gospel. In training the rank and file of native 
Christians to be missionaries to their own relatives 
and neighbors, he multiplies himself, and places his 
work on a solid basis. Missionaries may come and 
missionaries may go, but the native church remains. 
With God's help, it must live and grow, till the 
whole land and all its people have been won for 
Christ. 

T3 . . As the work among the Laos people 

Beginnmg - ., i r • /. • 

J. ° has grown, the duty of mamtammg 

r\ ^ o-.. ^- regular Sabbath and evening wor- 

Out-Station u- - ^u - u ^ -i 

ship m their own homes and vil- 
lages has constantly been laid on the new believers. 

124 



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Touring and Teaching 



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126 An Oriental Land of the Free 

People of several adjacent villages often unite in 
these services. As time passes on, perhaps very- 
soon, their interest and efforts draw in relatives and 
friends. Leaders and elders are chosen, and the 
new center becomes a recognized out-station of the 
mission. Seventy-two such centers of Christian in- 
fluence were reported by the mission in 1907. 

--,, -,. . , Each missionary, medical as well 

The Missionary's , . , . ^' ., , 

^. - - , ^ as clerical, is made responsible 

Field and Force , • 1 ^ r .1 1 • 

for oversight of the work m one 

or more of these out-stations. The district about 
it is his peculiar field. The Christians in it are his 
working force. To maintain interest and attend- 
ance upon the services in distant and widely scat- 
tered villages, to secure growth in knowledge and 
grace, and to make of these men and women, weak 
and ignorant, but with the love of God in their 
hearts, leaven that shall leaven the whole lump, 
is the constant problem of the touring mission- 
ary. 

While he ever seeks and finds opportunity to pre- 
sent the gospel to " outsiders," to those who have 
not yet " entered the religion of Jesus," still the 
best work of the missionary in districts where the 
gospel has already found entrance, is done through 
the native Christians, not independent of them 
His heart is often gladdened by an invitation t 
visit a home where the work and words of son 
Laos brother or sister have already aroused interc 
in the gospel message. 



Touring and Teaching 127 

- , . Multitudes of villages, some of them 

Intension . • • . .• 

-, quite near our mission stations, are 

-J, . yet untouched by the gospel; whole 

districts, a little more distant, but 
easily within reach, have still no Christians. Nei- 
ther these nor the wider field yet untouched, must 
be forgotten and neglected, but the touring mission- 
ary or evangelist usually visits first his established 
out-stations, seeking to " strengthen the stakes,'* 
that from them he may " lengthen the cords," to 
reach and hold the whole land for Christ. Two 
distinct phases of evangelistic effort are thus indi- 
cated, the intensive and extensive; one seeks to 
deepen conviction and increase knowledge in hearts 
and districts already touched by the gospel; the 
other reaches out to the regions that are beyond. 
Of either one it may be said, " These ought ye to 
have done, and not to leave the other undone.'' 

mt- rri • Touring is done at all seasons of the 

The Tourmg ^ , ^ . , . . 

« year, and touring during the rams 

or the rice season has its own advan- 
tages as well as its peculiar difficulties. However, 
most of the touring work, especially that in which 
the ladies of the mission share, must be done be- 
Atween January and June. These months between 
. rice harvest and rice-planting are often spoken of as 
the "touring season." The people are then less 
)usy and more accessible than at other seasons. 
Roads," if such we may call them, are then at 
their best, and neither mud nor floods stand in the 



128 An Oriental Land of the Free 

traveler's way. Language study, literary work and 
other parts of a missionary's duty that can be post- 
poned to a convenient season, fill in the months 
when traveling is difficult or impossible. From 
January to June almost all the families in the mis- 
sion spend at least a part of their time in field work. 
^ . During the touring season, the 

. _; , evangelists employed by the native 

m Touch It u \u ' ' 

.., .1 T^» 1 1 church, as well as the missionaries 
With the Field ^i , ^ 4.- -ri, 

themselves, are most active, ine 

little army of self-supporting vaccinator evangelists 
referred to in the next chapter are then sent out. 
Dififerent plans are employed in different stations 
to keep in touch with these native workers, and 
make their efforts effective. In Chieng Mai, the 
number of workers is larger than elsewhere, and 
more systematic oversight is possible. The vaccin- 
ators come in for instruction three or four days 
each month, and the other evangelists, whether 
employed by the native church or by the mission, 
usually come to share in the instruction and inspira- 
tion of these gatherings. As the evangelists and 
vaccinators represent in their persons nearly every 
out-station in Chieng Mai and Lampoon provinces, 
and go out for their work over an even wider area, 
the missionaries are able through them to come 
into intimate touch with every part of the field. 

c*^ ^« r-\ ^ At the close of each session, the mis- 
Starting Out . . ,- - 
J. _r sionaries as well as the native 

workers go out for another month 

of hand-to-hand work. Let us follow them into the 



Touring and Teaching 129 

field. In imagination we will join a party on a 
tour to the north from Chieng Mai. 

It is a Thursday afternoon. A pack pony, a cook 
and several carriers, as well as two native evange- 
lists have gone out earlier in the day, but the mis- 
sionary is delayed by callers till nearly night. He 
rides out and overtakes his men twelve miles from 
the city, not as he expected in a village where there 
are Christians, but camped in a rest house by the 
roadside. It is too late for any formal services, and 
a little rain is falling, but after supper several of 
the party find opportunity to talk with other trav- 
elers and villagers, and at evening worship, despite 
the rain, some others are present. 

y-% ^t -nir i Bris^ht and early the next morn- 
On the March . "^^ 1 i . ., 1. 

ing the cavalcade is on the march. 

In several villages by the way the missionary pauses 
at the home of a lonely Christian family, or of an 
acquaintance who has shown interest in the truth. 
At noon he tarries two hours in a Christian village, 
visits some of the homes, and holds a brief service, 
but he cannot remain longer lest he fail to reach his 
appointment for the Sabbath, which is still far 
away. Night finds him camped beside the home of 
a man who knows Dr. McGilvary, and has heard 
something of the truth. The use of the stereopticon 
brings a crowd of villagers to see and hear the story 
of the life and love of the Saviour of men. Several 
remain to question further, but are not ready to 
commit themselves. May the seed thus sown be 
not in vain. 



I30 An Oriental Land of the Free 

A /-s ^ «^ .• An early start and a long day^s 

An Out-Station . ^ ^, ^ • 

journey over the mountains 

bring the party Saturday evening to the chapel at 
Muang Pao. This is one of the largest and most 
vigorous out-stations in Chieng Mai province, but 
so distant and difficult of access that it cannot be 
frequently visited. Just now the work there is 
particularly important, because there has been a 
large immigration from other more densely popu- 
lated districts. These immigrants, separated from 
home ties and surroundings, are peculiarly open to 
new influences. Three full days there will enable 
the missionary and evangelists to visit most of the 
Christian homes. Daily classes for the children, the 
women and the men, and evening services for all, 
are held. The Sabbath is especially full, and nearly 
every Christian household for five miles around is 
represented in the services. A definite agreement is 
made to begin school the following week. Word 
comes later that nearly forty pupils are enrolled. 
Schools like this draw no money from the board, 
being supported by tuition and other contributions. 

A Hard Day's ^^^^ Muang Pao, a long day of 
- ^ hard travel up the mountains and 

^ ^ then down the beautiful valley of 

Wild Palms and along a stream that loses itself in 
a cleft in a rock, on past Ogre Mountain with its 
caves, from which the country's supply of saltpeter 
comes, brings the party to Chieng Dao, a distant 
out-station that has suffered by removals and in- 
sufficient oversight. Here several days are spent in 




\ Laos Maid 



Touring and Teaching 131 

instruction, council and encouragement, going from 
house to house among a widely scattered flock. 
Here, as everywhere, the stereopticon and picture 
roll aid in bringing the people together. Encour- 
aged and strengthened by this too hurried visit, the 
people not only gather in unusual numbers for the 
Sabbath services, but subsequently show greater 
zeal and perseverance. On the return journey both 
nights are spent in villages where isolated Christian 
families are holding out faithfully amid difficult 
surroundings. 

. -^ .- In 1906, every missionary family in 

rp Chieng Rai spent many weeks in tour- 

ing. Mr. White described their trip 
as follows : 

" Early in February, we packed our belongings, 
closed the house, and spent five very happy weeks 
among the Christians south and west of the city. 
As we stopped for dinner at Me Sooie, several men 
doing business at the court that day called on us 
and urged us to visit their villages. Two said: 
* Do you not remember us? You gave us tracts in 
a temple in Chieng Rai.' Since then it has been my 
privilege to receive one of those men to full com- 
munion. * Baby Elizabeth,' * Baby Bilhorn ' (the 
organ) and a magic lantern were irresistible at- 
tractions, and wherever they went we had splendid 
audiences. The chief prince of Muang Fang invited 
us to his residence to show the pictures, and the 
immense house was packed with his friends and 
retainers. In Wieng Pa Pao, homes closed to us 



132 An Oriental Land of the Free 

last year invited us to hold services with them. It 
was a glad day for Pa Pao church when these wan- 
derers returned. At another village we found a 
good old deacon, whose prayers for the sick and ail- 
ing ones in the community have had most remark- 
able answers. Another Christian, with beaming 
face, invited us to come and examine seven cate- 
chumens. Poor, spirit-ridden people, chased from 
village to village, they had fled to the Christians at 
Wieng Pa Pao and been gladly received and kindly 
treated. Now they were eager to profess their faith 
in the Saviour who had delivered them from the 
power of the demons. We found also two men over 
sixty years of age (and therefore exempt) who had 
paid the four tical poll tax rather than take a 
heathen oath as to their age. Altogether this trip 
and the year was a most happy one.'^ 

rry . Those of our missionaries who sfive 

Tourmg . ,. . , ^ 

. - most time to evangelistic work are 

••, ^ c, out nearly every month in the year. 

Wet Season rp, . ,, . / r^ tv/t n-- c 

The following from Dr. McKean, of 

Chieng Mai, tells of some such w^ork : 

'^ The missionary has no Sabbath day of rest. No 

day is a harder strain on his spiritual and physical 

nature than the Sabbath. Last Sabbath, for in-v 

stance, the missionaries in Chieng Mai spent the 

day as follows : Harris went to Me Dawk Deng, 

twelve miles distant. The rice season is here and 

the fields are overflowed. It is practically impos- 

ible to go wnth a horse at all, nor could he reach the 

chapel in time if he went Sabbath morning. After 



Touring and Teaching 133 

teaching school on Saturday, he started out on foot. 
Plowing through mud and water, crossing innumer- 
able irrigating ditches, one stream up to his neck 
and no bridge, zigzagging across the fields on the 
narrow rice ridges, he finally reached his destina- 
tion, and after a night's rest and a day full of ser- 
vices and pastoral work of every sort, he returned 
ready for work at home on Monday morning. 

** Mr. Collins rode to another church, equally dis- 
tant, but he had a good road most of the way. I 
saw him come home in the evening, very tired, but 
Monday morning, bright and early, he is at work 
in the press. 

" Mr. Waite spent the Sabbath at Nawng Fan, a 
Christian village, six miles distant, where a former 
head priest, a man influential and widely known, 
has recently become a Christian. Dr. McGilvary 
recently made a trip into the country of which he 
said : ^ I wish I could photograph for you my last 
Me Pu Kah trip. The road was the worst I ever 
traveled. I rode back and forth in one ditch, al- 
most swimming at times, in despair of finding a 
place where my horse would climb the bank. Finally 
after a super-equine effort my horse paused in 
equilibrium uncertain whether he would gain the 
bank, or tumble back in the mud. You can imagine 
my relief when the good horse really did scale the 
bank.' How is that for a boy of seventy-eight sum- 
mers? 

" But last Sabbath Dr. McGilvary spent the day 
teaching in the temple. Dr. McGilvary has spent 



134 An Oriental Land of the Free 

more time in presenting the gospel to the priests 
than any other missionary. Many a man, now a 
Christian, got his first knowledge of the truth from 
him in a heathen temple." 

While Dr. McKean is not an ordained minister, 
and medical work often detains him in the city, he 
shares most acceptably in the w^ork of preaching the 
gospel. On the Sabbath in question, he preached 
in the city church in the morning, and at Ban Den 
chapel in the afternoon. The evening was given 
to a magic lantern service in the hospital chapel. 
P^ - . The close of the year in Laos churches 

. ** , ^ is October 31. In September and 
-J October, visits must be made to as 

many of the out-stations as possible, to 
examine classes of catechumens who have been 
under instruction during the year. The writer had 
an unusual number of out-stations under his charge 
in 1906, and so an unusual amount of paddling 
through Laos mud fell to his share that fall. A brief 
sketch of two of those trips must close the chapter. 
p J --. Horses were ready when school closed 

^, ^ on Friday afternoon, and with Nan 

T M r1 Chak, my cook and right-hand man, I 
rode southward from Lampoon along 
a fair road for six miles. Then the ponies had to 
swim two hundred yards in swollen waters, where, 
in the dry season, one may almost jump across. My 
faithful " Red Horse " already had a cough, and this 
trip was the last he was able to carry me. Reach- 
ing the other side, we again found a fair road most 



Touring and Teaching 135 

of the way to our first stop. Our carriers were 
already there, and the evening was spent in teaching 
the people to sing, and in instructing a catechumen 
class. One of its members, a young mother who 
had married an " outsider," had stood firm when he 
threatened to leave her if she did not give up the 
Christian religion. I felt that her faith had been 
tested, and was glad to receive her. The next morn- 
ing horses had to be left behind. A boat ferried us 
across the " Big River," and with only Chinese 
trousers, a loose shirt and a hat, the writer was 
ready for wading. At the largest stream we ex- 
pected to find a boat, but none was to be seen. The 
swift current made it hard to cross, but on the other 
bank at a native house we changed to dry clothing, 
and were none the worse. A visit to a backslider 
who was glad to see us but not yet ready to return, 
and a call at a non-Christian home where medical 
skill opened the way, occupied the time till we were 
ready to start. After floundering across four miles 
of rice plain, we spent Saturday night at the house 
of a teacher in the Chieng Mai girl's school. Three 
of her brothers, though attendants at Christian ser- 
vices, were not members of the church. All seemed 
impressed and asked to be received as catechumens. 
It was four miles farther to the chapel, and the Sab- 
bath was without special incident further than that 
on the return in the afternoon the missionary man- 
aged to fall ofl: the bamboo pole that constituted a 
bridge, into a little stream. The return on Monday 
morning was by the same route and uneventful. 



136 An Oriental Land of the Free 

--- On the other trip two weeks later, the 

-^ , - horses could not carry us so far. Rain 
overhead was added to water under 
foot, and made the path so slippery that first one 
then the other carrier slipped down, but all w^as 
taken good-naturedly and no one was hurt. Six 
out of ten catechumens passed a creditable examina- 
tion at that out-station and were gladly received. 
Arrangements were made to open a school. We 
returned Monday morning, wet to the skin, but 
happy in having found real progress where we had 
hardly expected it. 

. - The position of woman among the 

- ^ z,. Laos is so entirely free that there is 
the Ladies ^ ^, -^ r 

- - not the same necessity for separate 

_ -.. . work on their behalf as in some fields. 

Mission A- .1 1 r ^1 • 1 J 

JNevertneless, many of the single, and 

some of the married ladies do some independent 
touring. Miss Fleeson in Lakawn and Nan spent 
considerable time in outside touring. In Dr. Camp- 
bell's absence on long tours, Mrs. Campbell has 
more than once visited the out-stations alone or 
with her children, and Mrs. Crooks, in Chieng Rai, 
has twice visited the Musu, a hill tribe, among 
whom we have Christians, when Dr. Crooks could 
not accompany her. Each vacation in the girls* 
school Miss Gilson makes it a point to visit the 
homes of her boarding pupils. On one of these 
tours she conducted a class for men at Muang Pao, 
sixty-five miles north of Chieng Mai, and brought 
back with her eight new pupils for the school. Dur- 



Touring and Teaching 137 

ing the touring season, nearly every year one of the 
ladies of the mission has conducted regular classes 
for the women in some five different villages each 
week, thus riding a sort of circuit. Touring in Laos 
is more difficult for the ladies than for the men, and 
when ladies and children are of the party, the caval- 
cade is often a most picturesque one, for all that is 
needed to eat and wear, as well as tents, camp furni- 
ture and cooking utensils, must be carried. 



CHAPTER XII 

HOSPITALS AND HEALING AND HOW THEY HAVE 
HELPED 



Missionary 



From the very beginning of work 
-- . . '' among the Laos, medical missions 
^- have helped to open the way for the 

gospel. Dr. McGilvary, the founder 
of the mission, and every missionary since, whether 
nominally a medical missionary or not, has been 
compelled to do medical work. Three scourges 
cause more suffering and death in " The Land of 
the Free " than all others combined — they are ma- 
laria, smallpox and vesical calculus, or stone. The 
last is perhaps more common than in any other 
■ part of the world, and only the surgeon can bring 
relief from its terrible pain. Surgery was entirely 
unknown among the Laos, as in most other parts of 
Asia, until the coming of the medical missionary. 
To-day, in the Chieng Mai and Lakawn hospitals, 
the surgeons in charge of each operate on some forty 
cases or more each year, in most instances success- 
fully. The people have learned to trust the skill 
and loving care of the foreign physician. Had medi- 
cal missions done nothing else than exemplify the 
love of Christ in the relief of such suffering, time 
and means would have been richly rewarded. 

138 



Hospitals and Healing 139 

,, , . - In the early days of his work in 

Malaria and ^,. ,. . ^-^ ,. ^., .. , 

^ „- Chieng Mai, Dr. McGilvary hired 

men to take the " white medicine/' 
the name by which quinine has ever since been 
known there. Now it is sold in the market stalls 
of every city and many a village in the Siamese 
Laos states. Dr. McGilvary also introduced vac- 
cination among them. 

If anyone doubts the efficacy of vaccination, let 
him compare conditions forty years ago and to-day. 
Then parents expected that every child would have 
smallpox, and fully one third of them died of the 
scourge. To-day, throughout the great Chieng Mai- 
Lampoon plains, one seldom sees a case of small- 
pox. Why is this? Thirty thousand children 
have been successfully vaccinated during the past 
five years in that plain, by men sent out from our 
hospitals. 

-. . Years have been added to the average 

-^ ^ ^ duration of human life, and untold suf- 
fering subtracted. Instances need not 
be multiplied to make it plain that more than any 
other human agency, medical missions have pre- 
pared the way for the gospel among the Laos. 
Every week, every day in the year, in every mission 
station, the relief of human sufifering is quietly ex- 
emplifying the gospel, disarming prejudice, opening 
doors, winning a hearing for the message of a 
Saviour's love. If you would win men to Christ, 
you must convince them, not only that the Saviour 
loves them, but that you love them and are ready 



140 An Oriental Land of the Free 

to help them. In doing this, medical missions 
are a powerful, indirect evangelizing- agency. 
^, Medical missions are also most fruit- 

_ -. ful as a direct evangelizing agency. 

^ Elder Pun, whom the writer left in 

charge of his work when he came to this country on 
furlough, was known twenty years ago as " Crazy 
Pun.'' Native physicians could do nothing for him, 
and friends finally took him to the dispensary in 
Chieng Mai, probably with little farther expecta- 
tion than that, temporarily at least, they might be 
relieved of a burden. The missionary physician 
^ undertook the case. Gradually Pun's attacks of 
insanity became less frequent and less violent. He 
was allowed to return home, coming occasionally 
to the dispensary for treatment. The result was a 
complete cure. But while body and mind were 
being healed, he learned also of the Healer of souls. 
As he was taught to read with the use of the Bible, 
his mind and heart gradually opened to the truths. 
On his return home, in a quiet way he began to 
teach others and lead them as he had been led. 
Did he need a man to help him on the farm? Be- 
fore the rice crop was harvested, he had taught 
him to read and led him to Christ. If he went on a 
journey, his heart was so full, he couJd but tell his 
fellow-travelers the good news he had learned. 
" Crazy Pun " had become Elder Pun, one of the 
wisest and most tactful of our evangelists. It must 
not be supposed, however, that he was employed at 
once, or soon, as a paid evangelist. It was because, 






Y,^'^ 



^ « 







Helpers, Chiexg Mai Dispensary 



Hospitals and Healing 141 

whether at home or abroad, in season and out of 
season, he was leading men and women to Christ, 
that the native church employs him as an evangelist 
at a wage hardly half of what he could earn in other 
ways. 

. p - All the assistants in the Laos hospi- 

--. -. - tals and dispensaries are Christians. 

A • ^ X. A group picture of four of those em- 
ployed in the Chieng Mai hospital 
shows the kind of men with whom we work. Ai 
Lai, on the left, is in charge of the vaccine labora- 
tory; Doctor Chanta, a Christian elder who for 
more than twenty years has given faithful service, 
and is now Dr. McKean's right-hand man in medi- 
cine and surgery, stands next; in front of him is 
Doctor Keo, hospital steward and head nurse, and 
at the right is Muang Chai, the second assistant, a 
younger man who is rapidly gaining in knowledge 
and skill. 

No better example of a true medical missionary 
can be found than Doctor Keo, whose story Dr. 
McKean tells in these words: 

" Sixteen years ago two men who had come three 
days' journey, appeared on our veranda. They 
were forlorn specimens of humanity, brothers, and 
both very ill. I shall never forget the confident 
manner with which they placed themselves and 
their ragged belongings at our door, seeming to say: 
* Here we are at last. The missionary is our friend, 
we shall surely find relief.' Both were cured, and 
surely God sent them to us. One went back to 



142 An Oriental Land of the Free 

his family and lived and died a Christian. The 
other, whose name is Ai Keo, remained in the hos- 
pital, became my assistant, and is now my steward 
and head nurse. His whole life and thought seem 
given to the service of God. Faithful to every duty, 
constant, kind and unselfish in his care of the poor 
sufferers who come to us, I verily believe Ai Keo 
has done more to comfort and relieve the sufferings 
of his own people than any Laos man who ever 
lived." 

Although burdened with other duties, AI Keo 
constantly teaches by word of mouth the truth his 
life exemplifies. For him, more completely than 
any other Laos man the writer knows, " to live is 
Christ." 

A few years ago, Mr. Gillies was touring in the 
northern part of the province of Lakawn, in a dis- 
trict no missionary had ever visited before. He 
began to talk with a man from the village while he 
was waiting for his carriers. Very naturally, the 
villager asked his business. When Mr. Gillies told 
him he had come to tell of the '' Jesus religion," the 
man immediately answered that there was a " Jesus 
man " in that village. Mr. Gillies soon found him 
and discovered that, several years before, this man 
had, for a short time, received treatment in the 
Lakawn hospital. He was unable to read, but had 
listened with earnest attention to the gospel in song 
and story as he heard it there. When the time came 
for him to leave, the missionary physician had bid- 
den him remember what he had heard and come 
again soon. He was far from the city and had never 



Hospitals and Healing 143 

returned, nor had an elder or other Christian ever 
visited him. But all alone, unable to read, with 
very little knowledge of the way, he had neverthe- 
less torn down the spirit shrines and other signs 
of superstition, and had taught others as he had 
opportunity, what he had learned. He was known 
and respected in all the village as '* the Jesus man." 
It was a pleasure to Mr. Gillies to remain some days 
in that village and deepen the impression this faith- 
ful disciple had already made, as well as further 
instruct and baptize the man himself. 

Many other incidents might be told to illustrate 
the fact that medical missions, as a direct evangel- 
izing agency, as well as indirect, are telling power- 
fully for Christ ; but we must hasten on. 
TVj ^ • > ^^^ ^^ ^^^^ greatest dangers that con- 
^ fronts our work is the liability of those 

who have already professed themselves 
Christians to be tempted back into heathenism 
when disease attacks them. It is a common belief 
of the Laos people that most diseases are the work 
of evil spirits, and the native doctor often refuses 
to prescribe until the customary offering has been 
made to the spirits. In his lonely village, far from 
the help of the missionary, the only believer in that 
village perhaps, what can the poor Christian do 
when sickness comes, when the life of his wife or 
child is at stake? What would you do? 
Th T • 1 When a man so situated says, as I 
f F 'th have heard them say, *' Living or dy- 
ing, I am Christ's," it means more, re- 
quires a greater strength of faith to keep the resolu- 



144 An Oriental Land of the Free 

tion, than you or I can realize. Unless we can bring 
some knowledge of foreign medicine within their 
reach, we can hardly hope to hold true to their con- 
victions the weaker members of our churches, 
when such emergency arises. The mission is try- 
ing to do just that. 

p, . . In 1905 the dispensary in Chieng Mai 

-- . sent out one hundred and fifty Chris- 

-^, . . tian vaccinators. These men were 

Physicians • 1 ^ j r 1 1 

•^ required to spend four days each 

month at the dispensary, where they received care- 
ful instruction, not merely in the art of vaccination, 
but in the use of common remedies for common dis- 
eases, and in the use of their Bibles. The small fee 
the government allows them to demand makes of 
them a body of self-supporting evangelists who 
reach many villages and districts which the foreign 
missionary has never reached, and their scalpel and 
little cases of medicine give them access to homes 
where even they would not be welcome as evangel- 
ists. 

^ ,- « . Some of these men who have 

p y ^ been sent out year after year, 

not only earn for themselves a 
fair living, but are becoming quite skillful in the 
treatment of ordinary diseases. They are becom- 
ing real medical missionaries to their own people. 
In His name they heal the sick, in his name they 
cast out demons, and in his name they preach the 
gospel of the kingdom. They not only bring the 



Hospitals and Healing 145 

gospel to those who have never heard, but are able 
to hold true to their course many who are tempted 
in sickness to offer to the demons the sacrifices 
they and their fathers have been wont to offer, and 
so deny Christ. Medical work among the Laos 
people is not merely an evangelizing agency direct 
and indirect, but it is God's own means of conserv- 
ing that which has already been won. 

-^ . ^ What equipment has the church in 

Equipment . . .1 1 r 

^ America provided for carrying on 

this important work? As one hears of the utterly 
inadequate buildings and instruments at the com- 
mand of medical missionaries in some of the mis- 
sion fields, one feels that the Philadelphia journalist 
who spent more than a year in visiting the mission 
fields of the world was in a measure justified, when, 
in view of such a niggardly policy he exclaimed 
to the men of the church, " Do the job or chuck 
it." 

The Laos mission has received most gener- 
ous treatment at the hands of the church. It only 
asks a continuance of the substantial interest 
shown in the past as new necessities arise. More- 
over, the confidence and interest of both rulers and 
people in its medical work is shown in the fact 
that the whole current expense of all our dispens- 
aries and hospitals is met by current receipts. 
Even for the enlargement of our older hospitals, 
they have come to depend on the generosity of 
those who have been benefited by their work. 



146 An Oriental Land of the Free 

More physicians and better equipment in the 

smaller stations are needed. 

rw M • ^^^ means for the original buildings 

-T .^ , of Chieng Mai Hospital and Dis- 

Hospital ^ r A . 

pensary came from America, so- 
licited by Dr. Marion A. Cheek, who gave fifteen 
years of faithful service to the work there. In re- 
cent years the hospital has been much enlarged 
through gifts from the native, the Chinese and the 
European merchants resident in Chieng Mai, and 
by the use of net current receipts. To-day it holds 
real estate and equipment worth at least twenty-five 
thousand dollars, and has comfortable accommoda- 
tions for at least fifty patients, and residences for 
two physicians. Besides its native, its '' princes' '* 
and its foreign wards, its commodious chapel as 
well as its physicians' residences, it has a vaccine 
laboratory from which all the stations, and the gov- 
ernment as well, draw their supplies of vaccine. Its 
most pressing need to-day is an adequate and mod- 
ern operating room. No one who has not seen it can 
realize the extent and importance of the work that 
is being done there from day to day. If only because 
the whole mission looks to Chieng Mai as the seat 
of its projected medical school, it ought not to be 
obliged to wait for this much needed operating 
room where a group of students can conveniently 
see and assist, and where unsanitary conditions 
shall not endanger the results of the surgeon's 
skill. The illustration shows only the main build- 
ing. 



Hospitals and Healing 147 

^ , ^^ In Lakawn the Van Santvoort 

Lakawn Hos- tt -^ 1 - r^- a^ 

. , , Hospital ana Dispensary are do- 

pital and . . ^- ^ 1 1 r^-^-i 

1^. ing an m-patient work only a little 

^ ^ smaller than in Chieng Mai. Its 

wards are of more recent construction and in some 
ways more convenient than those in Chieng Mai, 
and it has a better operating room. Its wards are 
often crowded, but the out-patient work and the 
sales of medicine are naturally smaller than in the 
great city and province of Chieng Mai. In recent 
years, the direct results of its work in men and 
women won to Christ have been a marked feature 
of work in Lakawn. We sincerely regret that cir- 
cumstances make it doubtful whether Dr. Hansen 
will return to the work he has carried on so effect- 
ively. 

^ - A generous gift of ten thousand dol- 

TT .. 1 Jars as a memorial to a gentleman 
of Philadelphia has made possible the 
construction of an adequate hospital on modern 
lines in Chieng Rai, and the near future will see 
that important center for medical mission work 
well equipped, and exerting an influence that will 
be felt, not on Siamese soil alone, but far across 
the borders in British, and French Laos, and even 
up into China itself, for it stands on important 
caravan routes. A smaller building in Nan, 
erected mainly by use of the money paid the phy- 
sician there by the Siamese Government for the 
care of the soldiers, gendarmes and civil officials 
stationed in that province, suffices for immediate 



148 An Oriental Land of the Free 

needs. But in Pre there is no hospital, and only 

a dispensary building. Temporarily Pre has been 

without a missionary resident. If it is occupied 

again, and it must be, a hospital of adequate size 

should be built at once, and the growth of the work 

will soon demand larger hospital accommodation 

in Nan and in Lakawn. 

_,, „ The King of Siam and his advisers 

^ , have always taken an intelligent 

^ ^ interest in the work of the Amer- 

Government . . . -n . .1 1 

lean missions. But they nave re- 
peatedly shown an especial interest in the medical 
work. Many years ago, the Siamese Government 
gave to the missionary physician in Chieng Mai 
exclusive control of vaccination in the north. 
They have readily granted the use of land for 
medical mission purposes, and contributed both by 
moral influence and financial aid to success. Both 
the king and his brother, Prince Damrong, Min- 
ister of the Interior, as well as the crown prince 
and other high officials have repeatedly spoken in 
the highest terms of the medical work and treated 
with marked honor those engaged in it. 
--- , - No account of that work would be 

, J complete that did not tell of the 

work that has been planned and 
with the hearty approval of the government act- 
ually begun in Chieng Mai for the lepers of Siam. 
The grant by the Prince of Chieng Mai, confirmed 
by Toysil authority, of an island in the river near 
that city, has made a small beginning possible, but 



Hospitals and Healing 149 

until the means for suitable buildings are in hand, 
only a small number of these sufferers can be pro- 
vided for. No picture is likely to give to one who 
has never seen them an exaggerated idea of the 
poverty and misery of these poor outcasts. Dr. 
McKean, who has for many years interested him- 
self in them, says in part : 

" From time immemorial, leprosy has been 
known and feared in the Land of the White 
Elephant. Wandering about the streets and into 
the temples, or wearily hobbling through the 
bazaar in quest of alms, an offense to all beholders, 
a menace to the public, the leper is always and 
everywhere an object of profound commiseration. 
Very early in the disease, owing to stiffening and 
contraction of the muscles, loss of toes and fingers, 
and other deformities, the leper is wholly incapaci- 
tated from earning a living. His only means of 
subsistence is begging, his food scanty and coarse, 
his clothing mere rags. In the cold season, it is 
probable that not one of these sufferers passes a 
warm or comfortable night. If he does not sleep 
in the open where night overtakes him, his hut is 
at best unspeakably poor and mean. Buddhism 
does nothing for the leper; the government does 
nothing to relieve his distress. There is no hope 
for the betterment of his lot save from us who en- 
joy the blessings of a Christian civilization. Lep- 
rosy is incurable, but much can be done to amelio- 
rate the condition of the leper. He is homeless, 
hungry, all but naked. In an asylum, shelter and 



150 An Oriental Land of the Free 

warmth, food and clothing, will bring comfort to 
body and mind/' 

Such practical illustration of the spirit of Christ 
will open the lepers' hearts to the message that 
brings peace to the soul. This will assuredly pre- 
vent the spread of the disease. Hundreds of 
homeless lepers in our immediate vicinity know 
of our efforts in their behalf, and only await our in- 
vitation to come. We are even now caring for 
thirteen lepers in temporary huts of bamboo and 
thatch, but they and we are dependent upon the 
gifts of our friends in this favored land. Two 
thousand dollars will build a brick cottage and give 
a home to twenty leper men or twenty leper 
women. Twenty-five dollars will provide the en- 
tire support of an adult leper for one year. 
Twenty dollars will support an untainted child for 
a year. *' Inasmuch as ye did it unto one of these 
my brethren, even these least, ye did it unto me." 



CHAPTER XIII 

SCHOOLS, THE PRESS AND CHRISTIAN LITERATURE 

p . In the Laos field, as has already 

p - o 1 ^ been said, school work followed 
of the Schools ., ./ j j i 

rather than preceded evangel- 
istic effort. No considerable number of "out- 
siders '' have ever been enrolled in the schools. 
Some pupils have always come from non-Christian 
homes, but latterly, at least, the task of educating 
the children of Christians has been so large that 
little time or strength could be given to draw in 
others. The most notable exception is in the 
boys' school in Lakawn. There, quite a company 
of young priests who came to learn arithmetic and 
English, and held off from the religious exercises of 
the school, first listened, then began to share in the 
singing and Scripture reading. In addition, not a 
few boys and girls from the homes of Siamese and 
Laos officials have been enrolled as day pupils, 
rarely as boarders. Our schools give the best edu- 
cation to be had in the Laos states, and instruc- 
tion in English and higher branches increasingly 
attracts intelligent and ambitious pupils. We hope 
ultimately to draw them to Christ as well as into 
our schools. 

151 



152 An Oriental Land of the Free 

« , . However, the problems of school 

p - - work in the Laos mission are funda- 

mentally two: To teach every Chris- 
tian Laos boy and girl to read the Scriptures in his 
own language, and to educate the future leaders 
both of the church and of the community. In- 
telligent mothers, educated Christian men and 
officials are needed as well as evangelists and 
teachers. We need especially Christian phy- 
sicians. Still, to raise up a native ministry, edu- 
cated in our schools, is the problem that specially 
confronts the mission. " Young men for action, 
old men for council," so dominates the thought of 
the people, that so far our native ministers and 
evangelists are mostly men instructed in the 
Scriptures in adult years, and sent out to teach. 
As in the days of our Saviour in Jud^a, the people 
would not readily listen to one under thirty years 
of age who taught publicly. As teachers in the 
schools, they welcome our educated young men and 
women, but the problem of a native ministry is as 
yet unsolved in the Laos field. 
--.-. " A Christian primary school within the 

^ , - reach of every Christian Laos boy or 
girl," has been the watchword of the 
mission within recent years. Until ten years ago, 
little effort was made to establish village schools. 
The boarding schools in each station did primary 
work, but as the number of Christians and their 
desire for education increased, some change was 



Schools, the Press and Christian Literature 153 

necessary. The school accommodation, the time 
and the means given to primary work, were needed 
for pupils of higher grade. Little by little, though 
not yet entirely, the responsibility for this work 
has been laid on the members and elders of our 
churches. Self-supporting primary schools, at- 
tended sometimes by '' outsiders," as well as 
Christians, have been gradually developed. Natur- 
ally the most conspicuous success has been at- 
tained where there is a considerable and prosperous 
native Christian community. Still, there as here, 
the teacher makes the school, and successful 
schools have grown up where outward conditions 
did not seem favorable. On the other hand, out- 
stations which should maintain a good school 
often fail to do so. Still, each year sees a gain 
in the number and efficiency of self-supporting 
village schools. At its last report, the mission had 
twenty-two of them with over four hundred pupils. 

^ . - Under the old regime, there was no 
1 ample ana . . . . ^. ,, 

^ ^ provision for educating the women, 

Government f^. . u ^c t ^u u 

„ - . but nearly one half of the boys 

spent a longer or shorter time in the 
Buddhist monasteries or temples, where they were 
taught to read and write, but learned little else. 
Since the Siamese Government tightened its hold 
upon the Laos provinces it has instituted many re- 
forms and improvements. Conspicuous among 
them are the government free schools. 
Naturally these schools are conducted in the 



154 An Oriental Land of the Free 

Siamese language, but inasmuch as a good knowl- 
edge of Siamese is at present almost a passport to 
government employ, these schools are well filled, 
and as a whole do good work. They are still few 
in number, but a Siamese superintendent of edu- 
cation for the north is rapidly developing their 
number and efficiency. 

_, . -^ Education in the temples, being for 
^ . boys alone and conspicuously inferior 

^. . to that oflfered in the mission schools, 

^ , . the more that attendance there is im- 

possible for a Christian, put no diffi- 
culty in the way of maintaining Christian village 
and boarding schools. Not so with the govern- 
ment free schools. They have developed a de- 
mand for Siamese that makes it necessary for mis- 
sion schools, even in the villages, to teach Si- 
amese. 

As yet, no mission school has made that lan- 
guage the sole basis of instruction, as the govern- 
ernment schools are doing, but it may be necessary 
in the end. The instruction in government schools 
is free, and where they are established the main- 
tenance of mission schools in which tuition is 
charged is made more difficult. As yet, we can- 
not teach the Siamese language as well as they, 
and the loyalty of the Laos people to their own 
language is tested when we apply to them for sup- 
port for the Laos schools. Mission schools must 
maintain their existence by their efficiency. In the 
boarding schools instruction in English has proved 



Schools, the Press and Christian Literature 155 

a great attraction. There is general demand for 

it, and some government schools teach it, but 

very imperfectly. 

mL -r* ^ While these government schools 

The Future , i- .• ., -d ^ iw ^. ^u 

are less distmctly Buddhist than 

the temple schools, the influence and instruction, 
as well as some of the books they use, are not such 
as we wish for our Christian boys, and the govern- 
ernment as yet makes little provision for the edu- 
cation of girls. Christian schools must be main- 
tained, and their efficiency increased. Even in the 
Siamese language they must come up to the gov- 
ernment standard. If they do so, the government 
may aid Christian schools as they do in India on 
the basis of inspection and examination. That 
problems have grown more difficult, must only in- 
crease our determination to solve them success- 
fully. We welcome the government free schools 
and would cooperate with them for the educa- 
tion of all the people. 

-^ -. I have spoken of the government 
Boarding - , . ^ ■. . . ^ .,, 

« , - schools m connection with our village, 

rather than our higher schools, because 
the former are more directly in peril. For our 
boarding schools, the rivalry is wholesome. It 
makes self-support more difficult, but what good 
school in America, or elsewhere, is supported by 
tuition fees? American schools are endowed, and 
higher schools in Laos, as in other mission lands, 
must be endowed, or receive a more generous an- 
nual support from mission funds. Without this, 



156 An Oriental Land of the Free 

they cannot provide the education circumstances 
demand. 

Ch' M * "^^^ boarding schools for boys and 
c^ ^ f Rirls in Chienpf Mai are the oldest 

Schools . , ^ ' \.u • • T^ • 4.U 

and largest m the mission. It is the 

purpose of the mission to maintain in them a higher 
grade than in other station schools. Pupils who 
have reached a certain grade in other schools, are 
expected to come to Chieng Mai for higher work. 
From Lakawn, from Chieng Rai, and from Pre, 
pupils have already been enrolled. These schools 
have almost ceased to do primary work, and the 
grade and quality of work done is being steadily 
raised. The Christian character of the instruction 
and influence is shown by the numbers from all the 
schools that are received each year into our church. 
True, most of them come from Christian homes, 
but if the schools do little for " outsiders,'' they are 
holding our young people true to Christ, and train- 
ing them for leadership. 

p . Some years ago, the Crown Prince of 

P -^ Siam visited Chieng Mai, and was in- 
p -^ vited to lay the corner stone of William 

Allen Butler Hall, the new home for the 
boys' school. His Royal Highness was asked to 
give the school a new name. This he graciously 
did, calling it " Prince Royal College." It does 
not yet do college work, but it must do so if it 
is to meet the demands of the near future. Every 
year sees further steps in that direction. It now 
has two missionary instructors, Messrs. Harris and 



Schools, the Press and Christian Literature 157 

Palmer, and an efficient corps of native teachers 
trained in its own halls. About one hundred and 
twenty-five regular pupils are enrolled, and includ- 
ing a special term of instruction for teachers, its 
sessions continue ten months in the year. The 
normal class is held during the vacation of the 
regular school, and draws in, as it is planned to 
do, the teachers from village schools, both men and 
women, and from the boarding schools in other 
provinces. The training classes for evangelists, 
ministers and elders, have not yet been as closely 
associated with the college as they might be, but 
plans for the future include this. The missionary 
physicians have taught classes in physiology and 
hygiene, and several of the graduates of the school 
are in training in the hospital. As definite medical 
instruction develops, it is intended to make it a 
part of the work of the college. While it does not 
claim to measure up to its name, its plans are 
broad, and look to the development of a Christian 
college that shall be to the Christian Laos com- 
munity and nation all that those words imply. 
Tin r* 1 > While the girls' school in Chieng 
« , , Mai does not reach as hi^h g^rade, es- 

School • 11 • c- J • T7 1- 1! 

pecially m Siamese and in English, as 

the college, the grade and quality of work done 
have steadily improved under the efficient leader- 
ship of Miss Gilson. Industrial work, especially 
sewing and weaving, are a prominent feature of the 
school, and aid in the direction of self-support. 
Here, too, some pupils are enrolled from other 



158 An Oriental Land of the Free 



1 



stations. The number of boarding pupils is even 
larger than in the college, although the total of 
boarding and day pupils is not quite so large. Its 
last report gave one hundred and fifteen pupils of 
whom sixty-six were boarders. The burden is far 
too heavy ever to be well carried by one missionary 
teacher, and we rejoice at the action of the board 
that looks to an increase in its faculty. 
- , The girls' school in Lakawn is a monu- 

p. , , ment to the faith and efficiency of Miss 

« , . Kate N. Fleeson, who opened the school 
and during most of the time until her 
death in 1906 continued to conduct it. Lakawn is 
a smaller city and province than Chieng Alai, so 
that the rneans at her command were smaller, but 
the attendance and the grade of work done in her 
school placed it fully on a par with the larger 
school. Its present comfortable building, occu- 
pied a short time before her death, was erected with 
materials and funds Miss Fleeson herself solicited, 
largely in Lakawn itself. 

_ - The boys' school in Lakawn will 

Lakawn "^ ^1 t^ .1 ivt 

_, , « , , soon occupy the Kenneth Mac- 
Boys' School , • 1VT • 1 u -i^- 

"" kenzie Memorial building, a con- 

venient and adequate brick structure, which means 
much for its future. Lack of adequate accommo- 
dation, and still more of means for current ex- 
penses, have hampered this important school in the 
past. " Is it good policy," said Dr. Taylor, its 
principal, " to pay several thousand dollars to place 
a missionary on the field and support him until he 



Schools, the Press and Christian Literature 159 

acquires the language, and then refuse two to three 

hundred dollars a year to enable him to do efficient 

work in his school ? " It is hoped that in the future 

this lack will be supplied. 

^ - T^ - In Nan the Siamese commissioner 
Other Board- , , . . . ,. . ^. 

c^ , - showed his appreciation 01 the 

mg Schools , . ... , - re 

work of mission schools by oiier- 

ing to place a missionary in charge of the govern- 
ment school, pay all expenses and give him entire 
freedom to teach Christian truth. Difficulties stood 
in the way of accepting this offer. A boys' school 
has been established, but buildings and equipment 
are sorely needed. The schools in Pre and in 
Chieng Rai have been little more than day schools, 
and have drawn little from the treasury of the mis- 
sion, but in Chieng Rai at least there is immediate 
demand for a school more adequate to the needs of 
that large and growing Christian community, sec- 
ond only to Chieng Mai in numbers and import- 
ance. 

iTM. 1 • 1 When a large number of evang-elists 
Theological f - ^ a u ^i 

and Biblical ^?^^. ^^P^^^^^ employed by the 
T ^ ^. mission, it was easy to secure re<^u- 

Instruction - ,; , , . ? 

lar attendance on the training 

classes. In 1895 reduced gifts at home made it 

absolutely necessary to cease to pay evangelists 

and the burden was laid upon the native church. 

Even some of the best instructed and most efficient 

men had to turn to other employment. Since then, 

although the number of men sent out by the native 

church has gradually increased, and some have 



i6o An Oriental Land of the Free 

been regularly employed by the mission, training 
classes with a regular defined course have not been 
reestablished. No new men have been ordained 
to the ministry, and as I have already said, the 
problem of adequate training now presses upon the 
mission. 

^ . . Training classes are held each year in 
p- ^ Chieng Mai and in other stations, and 

in some of the larger out-stations of the 
mission. These classes and uniform Bible lessons 
for the Sunday school have promoted a general 
knowledge of the Bible and its truths among the 
people. All realize that instruction in the Bible, 
both in Sunday school and in training classes, 
should be more thorough and systematic; but such 
is the pressure of work upon our small forces that 
this need has not yet been met. 
^- p In the chapter " The Coming of the 

- J Gospel,'' it was stated that in the be- 

-^ - ginning of the work the Siamese Bible 

and hymn book and other Christian 
literature were used in schools and in public wor- 
ship. The two languages are kindred, and the 
Siamese is the language of the rulers of the land. 
The Laos is written in a different character, and no 
type to print it was in existence. Not until 1893 
did the arrival of the press and a font of Laos type 
put a Laos Christian literature within reach. Since 
that time the work of the press in Chieng Mai has 
gradually grown. It is not only the only press 
in the world equipped to print the Laos character, 



Schools, the Press and Christian Literature i6i 

but it also does much printing in Siamese, in Eng- 
lish and occasionally in French. Over three mil- 
lion pages are printed each year. Rather less than 
half of this is printed for the Bible Society and the 
mission, the balance is printed for the government 
and for other outside parties, and has made the 
press in recent years a self-supporting part of our 
w^ork. 
-. p- . Matthew, a Catechism, and Laos 

T .^ reading books were first printed, 

tian Liter- .a %i .• i r -r 

!An arithmetic, a geography, a Life 

of Christ, Pilgrim's Progress and a 
part of the Old Testament history, were reprinted 
with little change from the Siamese in which they 
had been originally written. It soon appeared 
that these Siamo-Laos books did not meet the 
need. A real Laos literature was called for and is 
gradually being supplied. One fourth of the Bible 
has been translated into the Laos language, and 
each year sees some addition to it. A General His- 
tory, Bible Stories, a Life of Christ for Schools, 
Letters of See Mo (written from America by a na- 
tive Laos man), Chandra Lela, A Story of Indian 
Life, — these indicate the range of the Christian 
literature our press is providing. 

Still, only the beginnings of a vernacular Chris- 
tian literature have yet been made. A Laos 
monthly paper, which gives a summary of the 
world's news, contributed articles of various sorts 
and comments on the Sunday school lesson, has a 
considerable circulation. 



i62 An Oriental Land of the Free 

The Hymnal "^^^^ Jonathan Wilson, D. D., one 
of the two founders of the mission, 
has not only shared in Bible translation, but he 
has given himself especially to the preparation of 
hymns. He has translated more than five hundred 
of our best English and American hymns, and com- 
posed some original hymns in the Laos tongue. 
The Laos people are very fond of singing. Many 
a Christian v^ho has only a small part of the Bible, 
carries his hymnal wherever he goes. Even non- 
Christian people sometimes join in singing these 
beautiful hymns, and the gospel is singing its way 
to the hearts of the Laos people, and will continue 
to do so when Father Wilson, our sweet singer, 
has passed away. Such tunes as " Onward, 
Christian Soldiers,'' " The Son of God Goes Forth 
to War,'' " Luther's Hymn," " Austrian Hymn," and 
** Aurelia," are constantly and well sung, in our 
Laos churches. 

Other text-books for our schools and for our 
evangelistic classes, and Christian books for gen- 
eral reading, and still more, the balance of the 
Bible in their own tongue, are needs that the Laos 
church and mission recognize, and seek to supply. 
But such work, if it is to be well done, must be done 
slowly. As a whole, even our Christian Laos 
people are not a reading or a book-buying people. 
The growth of the schools and literature, with their 
common demands on the press must grow to- 
gether. 



CHAPTER XIV 

THE NATIVE CHURCH 

^- ^ . - Dr. Lawrence well said that the 

The Aim of . r /-i • ^. • • -4. 

,,. . _,- - aim of Christian missions is to 

Mission Work ^ i i- 1 « -^ 1 4-- u t, »> 
establish a vital native church, 

and to " train it from the first in the principles of 
self-reliance, self-control and self-propagation." No 
hard and fast rule can be laid down by which we 
can measure the success of mission work, but the 
number of members enrolled tells far less than the 
establishment of a church such as Dr. Lawrence de- 
scribes. Has the work among the Laos people de- 
veloped such a church? A brief statement of the 
work that church is doing, with vignettes of some 
of its leaders, is the best answer to this ques- 
tion. 

p , I have said in another place that in 

-, ^ , - the ten years from 1884 to 1894, the 
, J enrollment of the Laos church grew 

^, , from one hundred and fifty-two to 

Church . . - , , , , ^ 

eighteen hundred and forty-one, a 

more than tenfold increase in ten years. In the ten 

years that followed, although the absolute increase 

was nearly as large, relatively it was far smaller. 

Does this mean that effort was less earnest, or less 

successful than in earlier years? Not necessarily. 

163 



164 An Oriental Land of the Free 

The Laos church found itself in 1894 
The Situa- with a large number of believers who 
tion in were little instructed in Christian 

1894 truth. Up to that time, the way to 

employment as evangelists and help- 
ers, paid by the mission, had been rather easy. 
Persecution had practically ceased, and some had 
come into all the churches with a stronger impres- 
sion of the privileges than of the duties of believ- 
ers. Providentially, we doubt not, the necessity 
arose for a retrenchment. Evangelists could no 
longer be freely employed. Instead, the duty of 
contributing to the support of work among them, 
that had hitherto been paid for mainly out of for- 
eign funds, was laid upon the churches. 
-^ - - This sudden change of attitude on 

^, ^, the part of the mission, however 

the Change ^ .^ r. i 

necessary it may have been, was 

difficult to understand. It took time for the church 
to adjust itself to the situation. Most of its lead- 
ers loyally accepted the burden laid on them, and 
increasingly year by year this initiative in Christian 
work has been taken by the churches. The mem- 
bers of the Laos church had never been " rice Chris- 
tians," yet they had leaned upon the missionaries 
before 1894, and expected more moral and financial 
help than the mission has since then been able to 
give. The action of the mission taken in December, 
1895, which definitely discontinued the old system 
of employing evangelists, was the " stirring up of 



The Native Church 165 

the eagle's nest/' It marked the end of the first 

stage of missionary effort among the Laos people. 

rr.1. Tiir An elder who was recently called as 

i he Mean- . . . <<a-t, • j 

£ ^y. ^ witness m court says: The judge 

^1. /-11. ^iid those around him, when I asked 

the L^hange , , ., - -. . 

to take oath according to the religion 

of the Christians, asked me why I had entered the 
religion of the foreigners. I answered that it was 
not the religion of the foreigners, but the religion 
of the one true God for all the world.'' Whatever 
it may have been before, when the responsibility 
for native evangelists w^as laid upon and assumed 
by the native church, that church could no longer 
be called the church or the religion of the for- 
eigner. For a few years accessions to the churches 
were smaller. Some who had professed them- 
selves Christians ceased to attend services. Two 
or three churches were more seriously affected than 
the rest, and even to-day report a smaller member- 
ship than in 1894. But these changes were mainly 
a consolidation, a gathering of strength for a new 
advance. 

- After three or four years when pro- 

^. ^ g-ress seemed small and doubtful, ac- 

Since 1894 ^ . u. U.U t. u u 

cessions to the churches began again 

to increase, and that increase has gone on steadily 

for ten years. Proportionally, accessions have 

never reached the standard of the ingatherings of 

1884 to 1893, but in actual numbers received, 1908 

surpassed any year that had preceded it, three hun- 



1 66 An Oriental Land of the Free 

dred and thirty-one having been received on con- 
fession. The church has grown more in intelligence 
than in numbers; it has developed leaders and self- 
reliance; it has grown in all that makes the church 
of God a power on the earth. It has grown in its 
conception of what it means to be a Christian and 
in the standard of Christian conduct it sets up. The 
Laos church has to-day an " esprit de corps," and 
a standing in the community very different from 
anything it possessed in the days of its most rapid 
growth. 

p The writer wishes not to be misunder- 

-- - stood. The Laos church has not yet at- 
tained its majority. There is still much 
that discourages. Were missionaries withdrawn, 
the native church, which numbers hardly one com- 
municant in a thousand of the native community, 
would find it difficult to stand and grow. The 
people need the moral support and encouragement, 
the guidance and constant help of the missionary. 
They need still more such a revival of vital religion, 
such a heart experience of God and his truth, as has 
been experienced in Manchuria and in other parts 
of China and of India. They need, the mission- 
aries need, the church at home needs, a new bap- 
tism of the Spirit. 

^ -. While an adequately trained and or- 

- dained ministry is lacking in the Laos 

field, and services almost everywhere 
are conducted by the elders, so that the local ex- 
penses are small, it still is true and important that 



The Native Church 167 

no money from America goes to the support of any 
Laos church. In most cases, too, the church pays 
a part of the salary of evangeHsts and shares in the 
oversight of their work. A larger sum is contrib- 
uted by the churches for native evangelists than is 
sent from America. The work of all the dispensar- 
ies and of the press is self-supporting. Primary 
schools in nearly every case are on a self-support- 
ing basis. Chapels and churches are usually built, 
repaired and maintained by the gifts of the native 
church. 

« ,- It has already been said that to-day, 

p . the primary work of evangelism, 

^ reaching and drawing to Christ 

those who are not yet believers, is done mainly by 
native Christians. Their work is often clinched and 
completed by the visit and influence of the mission- 
ary, but in this, as in many other respects, we re- 
joice to see that the native Christian increases, 
while the missionary decreases. 
- p Nothing more vividly illustrates the 

growing strength of the Laos churches 
ventions f, f^ ^^ . ^, 

than the Laos conventions. ihe 

strongest church in a district, or different churches 

in turn, invite the members of other churches to be 

their guests, and a two to five days' programme of 

addresses, practical discussions and Bible study is 

arranged. An increasing share each year is taken 

by our native brethren. In twenty-three out of 

thirty-two services at Chieng Rai, they were the 

leaders. Held at a season of the year when little 



1 68 An Oriental Land of the Free 

work IS done in the fields, embodying something 
of the light-hearted good-fellowship that marks na- 
tive festivals, giving to isolated Christians an op- 
portunity once in a year to realize the meaning of 
Christian fellowship, these gatherings have become 
a regular part of the programme of the year. " The 
whole meeting,'' says Dr. Wilson in Lakawn, " was 
a time of good things from God that refreshed and 
gladdened us all." " The gathering in Chieng 
Rai," says Dr. Crooks, " was well attended and 
richly blessed of God." 

. p A son of the martyrs said in Me 

Dawk Deng at the convention: 
*' These gatherings are great ; why, I can recall the 
time when I knew every Christian," and he pro- 
ceeded to count on his fingers. " We met in a 
small house in Dr. McGilvary's yard, just a hand- 
ful of us. Those who passed by would peep 
through the fence and say, ^ Witches ! Witches ! ' 
Now what a change. Christians come to this con- 
vention from all over the land." 
p . Not only are they planning and giving 
„. . and laboring for the evangelization of the 
•^ , districts near at hand, but more than once 
the native church has definitely com- 
mitted itself to the work beyond the borders of 
Siam and among a population that is largely aborig- 
inal, and understands little of the Laos tongue. 
In addition, companies of Christian women led by 
Mrs. McKean in Chieng Mai, and more recently in 
other stations, meet each month to study the mis- 



I 



The Native Church 169 

sion fields of the world. Their contributions are 
divided between evangelistic work near home and 
work for the blind in Canton, China. 
-_- „ - Sketches of Kroo Nan Ta, our first 

native minister, and of Dr. Keo in 
Chieng Mai Hospital have already been given. I 
will close the chapter with vignettes of a pastor, a 
teacher, an evangelist, and a Christian business 
man, four Christian leaders from as many different 
provinces. 

As an example of a pastor, I choose 
A Pastor — Kham Ai of Chieng Kham. Though 
Kham Ai never ordained, save as the first elder 

of the church in Nan, he was sent by 
that church to begin work in what is now its most 
important out-station. Whatever that growing 
group of believers is, it owes under God to this 
native pastor. A son of Christian parents in 
Chieng Mai, he had become a helper in the dis- 
pensary in Nan. His knowledge of medicine has 
been a constant help to him in his work. Nine 
days distant from Nan over high mountains, at best 
the missionary can visit him only once a year. His 
isolation and the dependence of the work on his in- 
dividual effort is as complete as if he were a mis- 
sionary in a foreign land, although this distant out- 
post is counted an integral part of Nan church. 
AT li — "'^^ 1897, a boy of a good Christian 
_,, , - family had nearly completed the 

Elder La • ^t, u y u \ - r-w 

course in the boys school in Chieng 

Mai. He went to Chieng Mai soon after that sta- 



lyo An Oriental Land of th^ Free 

tion was opened, being employed in some capacity 
by one of the missionaries, and he married there. 
He already had shown himself apt to teach, and 
when a parochial, self-supporting school was begun 
in Chieng Mai, in 1898, he was its teacher. He 
gave excellent satisfaction, and became Sunday 
school superintendent and elder, as well as village 
teacher. That school has grown in numbers and 
in importance with the growth of the Christian 
community, and now has four teachers of whom 
he is the leader. Less highly trained than some 
other teachers in the mission, he still is, so far as the 
writer is aware, the senior of them all in continuous, 
faithful service. Personally, the writer looks to 
him and men like him, trained in our boarding 
schools, then employed as teachers, to supply the 
need of a trained ministry. 

. p, y . Nan Pun had been employed at a 

^ p good salary as an " assistant " to 

the English engineer in charge of 
railway surveys. In 1905 he met with a serious 
injury which will make him lame for life, and was 
sent to the mission hospital in Lakawn. He was 
already an educated and exceptionally intelligent 
man, as his title Nan shows, and the study of the 
Scriptures convinced him that only in Christ, not 
in Buddha, could he find rest and salvation. When 
he recovered he at once asked to be baptized. Al- 
though a lucrative government position was offered 
him, he gladly remained as teacher in the boys' 
school at less than half the salary, that he might 



The Native Church 171 

study to be an evangelist. His first concern was 
for his family in Lampoon. So far only one of 
them has yielded to his persuasions, but with his 
wife's relatives in Pre, he has been more success- 
ful. Six homes in their village have torn down the 
spirit shrines and declared themselves Christians. 
Still, during term time. Nan Pun is a teacher and 
student. In the vacations, he is active as an evan- 
gelist, even if he is lame. He is one of the most 
promising of all our helpers, and despite his youth, 
a leader in Lakawn. 
. p, . . About 1885 a returning missionary 

r, . Tiir from Laos brought with him to 

Busmess Man—. . . r tvt r^i_ • 

^ ^ America the son of Nan Cnai, one 

of the earliest Christians in Chieng 
Mai, and a man of considerable means. Though 
See Mo came no farther than San Francisco and 
remained there only a year, he is the only Laos 
man who has seen as much as that of the ** outside 
country." His letters descriptive of what he saw 
in strange lands have been printed by the press, 
and are much read by his countrymen. He is an 
elder in Chieng Mai church, a merchant and a 
timber dealer, perhaps the man of largest means in 
the native church. He occupies a most comfort- 
able house, built after the foreign style, though 
adapted to native use. He is a reader of several 
American and English periodicals, speaks English 
perfectly and is an earnest Bible student and su- 
perintendent of the Sunday school. Pie was ap- 
pointed chairman of a commitee of the native pres- 



172 An Oriental Land of the Free 

bytery to foster and support Christian village 
schools. He is but one of a dozen Christian busi- 
ness men who might be named, mostly men edu- 
cated in our schools, busy men but ever ready to 
give time and thought to the interests of the com- 
ing kingdom. 



I 



CHAPTER XV 

OPPORTUNITIES, OUTLOOK, NEEDS 

. ^ The question is often asked, why have 

An Open . . t i a ^ 

^ the Laos people proved more open to 

the gospel than others on whom Bud- 
dhism has laid its hand? The answer seems to be 
somewhat as follows : 

First. Scratch the Laos Buddhist, and you find a 
spirit-worshiper, Spirit worship, not Buddhism, 
was the original, is the actual, religion of the Laos - 
people. Their sense of spiritual realities makes it 
easier to present to them a spiritual religion. 

Second. Another fact closely related to this, is 
that the Laos are a more religious people than the 
Siamese or the Burmese. This is probably because 
the deadening, atheistic tendencies of Buddhism 
have had less influence upon them. 

Third. To men and women who, from their 
earliest recollection, have lived in fear of the 
demons, the gospel of a loving Saviour who can 
and will drive out the evil spirit, comes with a mes- 
sage of deliverance. Once understood, it appeals 
to them in a way that we in Christian America 
hardly understand. 

Fourth. The Messianic hope of Buddhism, 
scarcely known in Burma, less emphasized among 

173 



174 An Oriental Land of the Free 

the Siamese, gives to the gospel a point of approach 
to the heart of every thoughtful Laos man .or 
woman. '' He for whose coming you long has al- 
ready come/' 

Fifth. The comparatively high moral standards 
of the Laos, not derived from Buddhism, but a part 
of their national inheritance and character, have 
prepared the way for the coming of the gospel. 

^. , Had the missionaries 2:one to 

Circumstances .it • o i -i^ 

n^L. ^ tr TT 1 J the Laos m 103^, when Dr. 
That Have Helped -n ,, , , 

hradley began work among 

the Siamese, they would have found poHtical con- 
ditions so confused, and life and property so in- 
secure, that perhaps little could have been accom- 
plished. British rule in Burma, and more direct 
enforcement of Siam^ese authority in the Laos 
states, have prompted peace, protected the persons 
of the missionaries, and given time and opportunity 
to the people to listen to their message. Changing 
political and social conditions, an awakened interest 
in education, increasing knowledge of the world, or 
desire for such knowledge, make the leaders of the 
people to-day peculiarly open to new influences, 
religious as well as social. 

HIT ^1, J rT.1 ^ The emphasis placed at the first 
Methods That ^ ,. . ^ , 

•, TT 1 1 upon evano^elistic etrort has never 
Have Helped a ^ t 1^4:^ f 

ceased to be a marked feature of 

mission work among the Laos. Whatever institu- 
tional or routine work may fall to their share, all 
missionaries — the women as well as the men — 
are expected to share in hand-to-hand evangelistic 
work. Of this work schools have been the result, 



Opportunities, Outlook, Needs 175 

not the precursors. The school has not been 
needed to open the way into the home, but rather 
to train the children of homes already open. Medi- 
cal work is useful in all fields, but more perhaps 
than in most fields medical work has among the 
Laos won friendship, removed prejudice and opposi- 
tion, and exemplified the real meaning of the gospel, 
•ps-fc 1^- That indifiference to all spiritual facts 
+ "R M i- ^^^ realities which is a marked result 
of Buddhist teaching, is the greatest 
obstacle mission work must overcome. Neither the 
Laos nor any other non-Christian people can be 
said to be hungering for the gospel. Individuals 
may show themselves prepared for its reception, 
but only a Christian heart full of love and helpful- 
ness can overcome indifference and awaken desire 
for higher things. 

A second obstacle is the ties of kindred, of 
friendship and of custom. To convince a Laos 
man or woman of the truth is easier than to per- 
suade him to break away from these ties and follow 
Christ. Of open persecution there is now little; of 
secret opposition, of the inertia that is slow to 
break with the past or allow others to do so, there 
is still much. The warp of Buddhism and the woof 
of spirit worship are so interwoven in the whole life 
of the people that it requires much faith and cour- 
age to break away. 

Finally, although moral conditions are vastly 
better than in India or China, even when indiffer- 
ence is overcome, when despite opposition, decision 
for Christ has been made, we must still constantly 



176 An Oriental Land of the Free 

remember in dealing with the new convert the pit 
out of which he was digged. Offenses against the 
moral law among professed Christians often sadden 
the missionary. He m^ust often remember the in- 
junction, " Ye who are spiritual, restore such a one 
in a spirit of gentleness. '' 

^, First. We are encouraged by the grow- 

C) f] If- ^^^ seh'-dependence of the native 
church. Its leaders welcome the mis- 
sionary as counselor, friend and teacher, yet often 
reverse the situation and really become themselves 
his advisers and leaders. God grant that this may 
increasingly be true as the years go on! 

Second. The number in the Laos land who in- 
cline to accept the truth, but have not yet broken 
away from old ties, as well as of earnest inquirers, 
is increasing. We pray and labor for, and we must 
expect in the near future, a larger turning to 
God than we have yet seen. May we be ready in 
the day of his power! 

Third. The very fact just stated, and the open 
door among the native leaders, emphasize the 
danger lest, if we do not enter with the gospel, 
these doors may be closed. Commercialism, ab- 
sorption in material things, the rush of modern 
life, all are coming in like a flood. Even to-day 
many of the young men, particularly those who are 
under the influence of Siamese officials, ar^ less 
open to the gospel than they were five years ago. 
Less universally perhaps than in China and Korea, 
but nevertheless truly, it is a time of crisis in Laos. 



Opportunities, Outlook, Needs 177 

Fourth. It must be kept in mind that promising 
as conditions are in some parts of the land, the 
great bulk of the area and of the Laos people are 
still totally untouched by the gospel. French 
and Chinese Laos are among the great unoccupied 
fields of the world. Even in Siam itself, half the 
Laos people are entirely beyond the reach of our 
organized work, and of those within reach only a 
small proportion have really heard the gospel. Of 
the Laos in Siam, only one in one thousand is a 
member of our church. On the average, each 
Laos missionary finds an area as large as several 
counties and a population of two hundred thousand 
persons accounted his parish, with two hundred 
scattered, imperfectly instructed believers, most of 
them very poor in this world's goods, as his work- 
ing force. I ask once more, in view of the vastness 
of the field yet to be reached, in view also of the 
burden of the work upon the mission and of the 
responsibility for that work that God lays upon the 
church at home : 

Is the Presbyterian Church in the United States 
of America planning for anything less than the 
conquest of the whole Laos race for Christ? 

What ought the church, what ought you, to do? 
-- - First. Larger income for educational 
work is counted by the mission its most 
pressing present need. The grade of our higher 
schools must be raised, and we should be able to 
accept all qualified pupils even if they cannot pay 
much tuition. We must train the leaders. 



178 An Oriental Land of the Free 

Second. The force of missionaries must be so 
increased that furloughs can be taken without 
crippHng the work. Existing stations must be 
fairly manned. At present, even when all are on 
the field, not a single station can be said to be 
adequately manned. 

Third. Foreign funds should be available for 
evangelistic work, so that we can assure our help- 
ers of regular and continuous employment at 
wages not too much below the compensation in 
other employment. We should be able to say to 
a church: If you will send out one evangelist we 
will send another to travel and work with him. 
We expect the native church to do its share, but 
we must cooperate with and help them. 

Fourth. We need missionaries and native help- 
ers to go into the regions that are beyond the limits 
of our present stations, and organize and man new 
stations. Expenditures for houses, for dispen- 
saries and for school buildings are to be provided. 

Above all, the Laos church needs that, by a 
fuller knowledge of its needs, the church at home 
may be able to pray more intelligently for the work 
in the fair Land of the Free, and more heartily to 
cooperate with the Christians at work there. If 
the church at home does its share, with the bless- 
ing of Him in whose name we all labor, we may 
surely hope to see the Laos race brought to Christ 
in our day and generation. That he may live to 
see this is the hope and prayer of the writer of 
these lines. 



QUESTIONS FOR STUDY 

The following questions have been prepared for the use 
of those studying this book. In accordance with the An- 
nouncement facing Chapter I, which all leaders of classes 
should read with care, questions on Chapters V to IX have 
been omitted. 

The purpose of these questions is not merely to review 
the text, but to promote independent thought and discussion. 
Review questions, appealing merely to memory, are of value 
only as preliminary to discussion and can easily be framed 
by any person of average intelligence. The questions given 
below demand the exercise of individual judgment as well 
as knowledge of the text; in a few cases the text will be 
found of no aid whatever. 

It is not supposed that the average student will be able to 
answer all these questions satisfactorily or that all students 
will agree in their conclusions. It is intended rather that 
students shall come to the class session with questions un- 
answered and opinions sometimes in opposition, so that there 
may be a real basis for discussion. 

Some of these questions may be specially indicated by the 
leader for discussion at the following session. In no case 
will it be advisable to try to cover the entire list. Better 
concentration on a few well-adapted questions than a hurried 
review of all. Circumstances will determine the selection 
for each class. For some the main value of the questions 
will be to suggest others that are better. 

In working out the questions the free use of pencil and 
paper is recommended. Ideas which are the result of reflec- 
tion should be jotted down, and pertinent passages in the 
text once more consulted for further light. The mere at- 
tempt to formulate usually helps to stir up new ideas that 

179 



i8o An Oriental Land of the Free 

would not otherwise arise. All this tends to give an appetite 
for the class session. 



Questions on Chapter I 

1. How would you state the missionary responsibility of 
the Christian church? 

2. How would you determine the missionary responsibility 
of any single Christian denomination? 

3. To what extent is the responsibility of any church de- 
termined by the average of what other churches do? 

4. What can you say as to the responsibility of the Presby- 
terian Church (North) at home? 

5. What can you say as to its responsibility abroad? 

6. Name all the points you can that give one field a greater 
claim than another. 

7. How far should the quality of its people affect the claim 
of any field? 

8. How far should the strategic position of a field as a 
base for future operations affect its claim? 

g. How far does exclusive occupation of a field affect its 
claim on the occupying body? 

10. For what missionary work in the world is the Presby- 
terian Church exclusively responsible? 

11. How do the Laos compare in number, for example, with 
the North American Indians? 



Questions for Study i8i 

12. How do they compare in probable future influence? 

13. How does their field compare with that of the North 
American Indians as a base for future operations? 

14. How does it compare in the number of Christian agen- 
cies engaged? 

15. Name the advantages to missionary work of having a 
single language for a large population, as is true for the Tai 
race. 

16. What are the advantages for the missionary of ap- 
proaching a new people with a previous knowledge of their 
language ? 

17. How will this widespread knowledge of a language af- 
fect the work of native evangelists? 

18. How long do you think it would take you to become a 
really effective preacher in a new language? 

19. How are the problems of missionary literature compli- 
cated by having several languages in a single field? 

20. Why is a time of transition in any field especially im- 
portant for missionary work? 

21. How many missionaries would we have in the United 
States if it were manned no better than the Laos field ? * 

22. How many missionaries would you have in the state 
in which you reside? 

23. Sum up the claim of the Laos field upon the Presby- 
terian Church. 

* See Appendix B. 



i82 An Oriental Land of the Free 



Questions on Chapter II 

1. Why cannot the religions of Asia take any credit for 
the high position of woman among the Laos? 

2. Which is better, the Chinese custom that a wife enter 
the husband's family, or the Laos custom that the husband 
enter the wife's? 

3. W^at is the effect upon the wife in the former instance? 

4. What is the effect upon the character of the husband in 
the latter instance? 

5. Contrast with this the Christian custom that the young 
people set up a separate home. 

6. What would be the practical effects of the Laos custom 
of inheritance? 

7. Contrast divorce among the Laos with that among the 
Mohammedans. 

8. What are the advantages and disadvantages of such 
strict observation of custom as obtain among the Laos? 



Questions on Chapter III 

1. What do you consider the strongest point in Buddhism 
as seen among the Laos? 

2. What are its worst features? 

3. Why do you think it succeeded in spreading as it has 
among the Laos? 



I 



Questions for Study 183 

4. Compare the Ten Commandments of Buddha with those 
of Moses, and state the main differences. 

5. Give reasons why you approve or disapprove of the last 
five Commandments of Buddha. 

6. Compare the Ten Commandments of Buddha with the 
two great Commandments given by Jesus Christ, and state 
the difference. 

7. What do you think would be the practical effect on life 
of the doctrine of Karma? 

8. What would be the practical effect upon life of ignoring 
the existence of God? 

9. What would be the practical effect of the doctrine of 
merit ? 

10. What has Christianity to learn from Buddhism as to 
methods of approach? 

11. What practical advantages has Christianity over Bud- 
hism in seeking to win the Laos? 

12. How much effort do you think it is worth that the Laos 
should have Christianity instead of Buddhism? 



Questions on Chapter IV 

1. Have you ever known anyone who was superstitious in 
any way? 

2. How do you account for such feelings? 

3. Which is the best guard against superstition, Christianity 
or common sense? 



i84 An Oriental Land of the Free 

4. Try to imagine the practical effect upon your own life 
of a belief in evil spirits. 

5. What effect would it have upon your perseverance? 

6. What effect would it have upon planning far in advance? 

7. How would you show that Buddhism is not good enough 
for the Laos? 

8. What are the practical evils of the belief in witchcraft? 

9. What practical advantages has Christianity over spirit 
worship in seeking to win the Laos? 

10. How much effort do you think it is worth that the 
Laos should have Christianity instead of spirit worship? 



Questions on Chapter X 

1. What responsibility has the Presbyterian Church as- 
sumed in occupying a field where no other Christian bodies 
are at work? 

2. What do the results of Mr. Caswell's tutorship indicate 
as to the importance of work for ruling classes? 

3. What sort of missionaries are needed for such work? 

4. For what various reasons do you think Dr. McGilvary 
might be called a great missionary? 

5. Why is it that new religions are so often persecuted? 

6. What are the advantages and disadvantages of persecu- 
tion to the church? 



Questions for Study 185 

7. What would you infer as to the character of heathen 

religions from the fact that those away from home are so 
much easier to win? 



8. Give several reasons why growth in a mission field 
should be more rapid after a couple of decades. 

9. What are the relative advantages of missionaries and 
converted natives as evangelists? 

ID. Is the mission right in encouraging the Laos Chris- 
tians to undertake work in French territory so far from 
home ? 

II. Formulate the responsibility of the Presbyterian Church 
for the Laos-speaking people of South China. 



Questions on Chapter XI 

1. Is the main duty of the missionary to preach the gospel? 

2. What do you mean by preaching the gospel? 

3. In what ways would the work of the evangelistic mis- 
sionary differ from that of a preacher in America? 

4. What are the main arguments for spending time in 
training natives to do evangelistic work rather than in direct 
preaching? 

5. To what extent do you think these arguments hold good 
for church work in America? 

6. Give the arguments for intensive as opposed to extensive 
work and vice versa. 



i86 An Oriental Land of the Free 

7. What should be the main aims of a missionary in an 
occasional visit to a station? 

8. Do you think that Christians in America would thrive 
under such occasional oversight? 

9. Who is ultimately to blame that there are not more con- 
verts in these villages? 

10. Which do you think are most in need of pastoral over- 
sight, Laos Christians or Christians in America? why? 

11. Study the table of distances and travel on page 125 
and try to discover places in America that are as far removed 
from each other in point of time as are the Laos stations. 

12. If you had to meet in your Christian work the same 
physical difficulties that the Laos missionaries meet in their 
touring, would you consider that you had a right to neglect 
it? 

13. What in your opinion are the principal needs of evan- 
gelistic work among the Laos? 

14. Whose business is it to see that these needs are met? 

Questions on Chapter XII 

1. What is the main purpose of medical missions? 

2. Would medical missions be justified if there was no op- 
portunity for direct evangelistic work in connection with 
them? 

3. Are Christian people justified in maintaining hospitals 
in this country which make no attempt to evangelize their 
patients ? 



Questions for Study 187 

4. What are the special advantages of medical over other 
forms of missionary work? 

5. What are its disadvantages as compared with other 
forms ? 

6. In what ways can a hospital be most effectively made a 
direct evangelistic agency? 

7. What rules should a missionary follow in the employ- 
ment of evangelists? 

8. What evidence does the chapter present to you that the 
Laos do become genuine Christians? 

9. If isolated Laos Christians relapse under temptation, 
where would you locate the final responsibility? 

10. Do you think it is wise to send out as teachers of Chris- 
tianity men who know so little as the vaccinators? 

11. Why is it important to have well-equipped hospitals 
among the Laos? 

12. How is this equipment to be secured in view of the 
lack of funds at the disposal of the board? 



Questions on Chapter XIII 

1. Name the purposes of missionary schools in such a field 
as the Laos in what you consider the order of their impor- 
tance. 

2. Indicate the sort of equipment that would be needed to 
carry out these purposes. 

3. What advantages has educational over other forms of 
missionary work? 



i88 An Oriental Land of the Free 

4. Should we be justified in spending time teaching non- 
Christians if no conversions resulted? 

5. What is the justification of maintaining schools at all 
when government schools exist? 

6. What course of studies should you recommend for the 
Laos as compared with that of schools in America? 

7. State what appear to you to be the principal needs of 
Laos schools. 

8. Why do you think the board sometimes pursues what 
seems like a poor business policy in equipping schools? 

9. What are the special advantages of boarding schools on 
the mission field? 

10. What sort of training do you think a prospective edu- 
cational missionary should have? 

11. Present the relative claim of America and Laos upon 
a Christian normal school graduate who is free to go. 

12. Why is it important to compose and not merely to 
translate the vernacular literature? 

13. How do you think the demand for literature could be 
stimulated among the Laos? 

Questions on Chapter XIV 

1. If the aim of missions is to found a self-supporting 
native church, when is the time to begin to teach self-support? 

2. Does the experience of 1894 indicate any previous mis- 
take on the part of the missionaries? 



1 



Questions for Study 189 

3. Because retrenchment proved a blessing does it follow 
that it would be better to cut down appropriations to all 
missions? 

4. In what ways might retrenchment be a blessing to the 
work at home? 

5. What needs can be provided by the church at home for 
the native church without fear of pauperizing it? 

6. What things should the native church be expected to 
provide for itself? 

7. If the native church cannot pay for these things, should 
mission funds be used for the purpose, or should it be 
obliged to go without? 

8. What are the advantages and disadvantages of making 
the demands upon native Christians very light? 

9. What are the advantages and disadvantages of having 
Christianity comparatively popular? 

10. What responsibility is laid upon missionaries when 
Christianity is popular? 

11. Should the chief emphasis then be laid upon extensive 
or intensive work? 

12. How do these principles apply to the work of the home 
church ? 

13. Should Laos Christian conventions be made as like or 
as unlike the native festivals as possible? 

14. Give several reasons why the Laos seem to you a peo- 
ple worth helping. 



I go An Oriental Land of the Free 



Questions on Chapter XV 

1. What circumstances constitute for any field a special 
claim on the missionary activity of the church? 

2. Which of these circumstances are present in the case 
of the Laos field? 

3. Sketch the main points of the gospel message that you 
think would be most attractive to the average Laos. 

4. In what way would you present the gospel in order to 
overcome indifference? 

5. How do you think it would be best to deal with the 
difficulty of the ties of custom? 

6. How would you recommend to deal with the breach of 
moral discipline in the native church? 

7. How will the entrance of commercialism affect the spirit 
of independence and the old customs? 

8. How will it affect morality and indifference towards the 
gospel ? 

9. Sum up the reason why the present is a time of special 
opportunity. 

10. What would be the Christian force in your state if it 
were no better provided than the Laos field? 

11. How many states adjoining your own would equal in 
population the over four million Laos in French and Chinese 
territory ? 

12. Is there any other field for which the Presbyterian 
Church alone is responsible that is so inadequately cared for? 

13. Sum up the appeal which the Laos field makes to the 
Presbyterian Church. 



APPENDIX A 

PRONUNCIATION OF PROPER NAMES 

ai, in Mai and Rai, as in aisle. 

ao, in Pao and Dao, like ow in cow (Yankee dialect). 

e in Me, as in men. 

Chieng, almost like chung. 

u in Muang, like German u. 

Pit-sa-nu-iok, accent on last syllable (loke). 

Sala, accent on last syllable, sa-lah'. 



APPENDIX B 

DISTRIBUTION AND WORK OF THE PRESENT FORCE OF THE LAOS 

MISSION 

Note. — In brief compass it is not possible to tell all the 
work assigned to the various members of the mission. Be- 
sides, furloughs often make changes necessary, temporarily 
at least. The effort is to designate the characteristic work 
of each missionary when on the field. Accordingly, no men- 
tion is made either of furloughs or of temporary assignments. 

The figures in parentheses, following the name, show the 
date of appointment. 

Chieng Mai 

Rev. Daniel McGilvary, D. D. (1858), Mrs. McGilvary 
(i860). Evangelistic work, particularly in the temples, Ut- 
erary work. 

191 



192 An Oriental Land of the Free 

Rev. and Mrs. D. G. Collins (1886). The Press. Charge 
of three out-stations. 

James W. McKean, M. D., and Mrs. McKean (1889). In 
charge of the hospital and dispensary. Bible translation. 
Laos monthly. Two out-stations. 

Howard Campbell, D. D., and Mrs. Campbell (1894). In 
charge of Chieng Mai church. Itineration. Bible transla- 
tion. Mrs. Campbell has charge of the Phraner Memorial 
Primary School. 

Rev. J. H. Freeman (1895), Mrs. Freeman (1892). Care 
of the churches and of the evangelistic and medical work in 
the Province of Lampoon. (Their residence is Lampoon 
city, seventeen miles from Chieng Mai.) Preparation of the 
Sunday school helps. Women's classes. 

Rev. William Harris, Jr. (1895), Mrs. Harris (1889). 
Principal of Prince Royal College. Mission Treasurer. 
Charge of Me Dawk Deng Church. 

Miss Edith M. Buck (1903). Teacher and Matron in 
Girls* School. 

Miss Mabel Gilson (1904). Principal of Girls' School. 

Rev. and Mrs. M. B. Palmer (1906). Vice Principal of 
the College. Charge of three out-stations. Together they 
train the schools and church in singing. 

Claude W. Mason, M. D., and Mrs. Mason (1906). Medi- 
cal work. Two out-stations. 

Lakawn (65 miles east and south of Chieng Mai)' 

Rev. Jonathan Wilson, D. D. (1858). Evangelistic work. 
Hymn translation. 

Rev. Roderick Gillies (1902) and Mrs. Gillies (1891). 
Evangelistic touring. Charge of Boys' School. 

Charles H. Crooks, M. D. and Mrs. Crooks (1904). 
Charge of Van Santvoort Hospital. Medical itineration. 
Literary work. 

Rev. and Mrs. Howells Vincent (1903). Charge of church. 
Itineration. Direction of building new Boys' School. 



Appendix 193 

Miss Elizabeth Carothers (1904). Charge of Girl's School. 
Women's classes. 
Miss Eula VanVranken (1906). Teacher in Boys' School. 



Pre (70 miles southeast of Lakawn) 

Rev. and Mrs. C. R. Callender (1896). Church and 
evangelistic work. 

Edwin C. Cort, M. D. Medical work. Language study. 



Nan (90 miles northeast of Pre, 160 miles due east of Chieng 

Mai) 

Rev. S. C. Peoples, M. D., D. D., and Mrs. Peoples (1882). 
Medical work and touring. 

Rev. Hugh Taylor, D. D., and Mrs. Taylor (1888). Church 
and school work. 



Chieng Rai (125 miles northeast of Chieng Mai) 

Rev. W. C. Dodd, D. D. (1886) and Mrs. Dodd (1887). 
Evangelistic touring. Charge of church and work in Keng 
Tung. Literary work. 

Rev. W. A. Briggs, M. D. (1890) )and Mrs. Briggs (1892). 
Medical and evangelistic work. Charge of local church. 

Rev. and Mrs. Henry White (1902). EvangeHstic work. 
School work. Charge of churches south of the city. Women's 
classes. 

Rev. Lyle C. Beebe (1908). Language study. Charge of 
churches north of the city. * 



Reinforcements, 1909 (Station not yet assigned) 

Rev. Wm. O. Yates. Language study. Touring. 
Miss Lucy Starling. Language study. Teaching. 



194 An Oriental Land of the Free 



APPENDIX C 

STATISTICS OF THE LAOS MISSION 

Statistics given are in every case the latest available; for 
the missionary force, 1909; for the native church and work, 
1908 except where no data later than 1907 are at hand. 

Missionary Force 

Ordained Men 17 

Doctors (two ordained) 6 21 

Wives 17 

Single Ladies 5 22 

Total Foreign Missionaries 43 

Native Helpers (Incomplete) 

Ordained Native Ministers 4 

Native Evangelists 30 

Teachers — Men, 30. Women, 12. Total 42 

Bible Women 4 

Medical Assistants 20 

Press Employees 24 

Vaccinators (Four months in year) 125 

Native Contributions (Incomplete) 

For Church Expenses Rs 178.49 

For Schools " 210.21 

For Missions " 113.09 

Total contributions Rs 501.79 

Equal $ 167.09 



Appendix 195 

Church Statistics 

Organized Churches (none aided) 18 

Stations and Out-stations 74 

Total Communicants 3,705 

Additions on Confession During 1908 331 

Sabbath School Pupils , 2,923 

School Statistics 

Boarding Schools 5 

Day Schools 24 

Pupils, about 450 

Attendance Training Classes, reported about 135 

Total under instruction, about 585 

Press Report 
Pages printed: 

For Bible Society and Mission. 1,403,800 

For outside parties 1,314,770 

Total 2,718,570 



INDEX 



Alphabet, The Laos, 32 

Animals, Wild, 85 

A.rts and Industries, Chapter 

V 
Average Man, The, 53 

Bangkok, Trade with, 89 
Laos Boats at, 42 

Bath, The Daily, 27 

Begging Bowl, The, 31 

Betel-Chewing, 57 

Bird Life, 83 

Boatmen, 42 

Superstitions of, 43 

Boats, 42, 63, 93, 94 

Bradley, D. B., M. D., 108 

Brick, 60 

Briggs, W. A., M. D., 11, 77 

British Laos, 15, 122 

Buddha, The 

Great Commandment of, 39 
Ten Commandments of, 38 
Under the Po Tree, 85 

Buddhisnx, Chapter III, 15, 

45 
And Education, 33, 117 
And Spirit Worship, 45 
Begging Monks, 31 
Coming of, 15, 32 
Karma, 36 

Messianic Hope of, 40 
No Power to Deliver, 46 
What Is Buddhism? 35 
Buddhist Bible, 33 
Buddhist Philosophy, 35 
Buddhist Temples, 31, 40, 59 
Buffalo, The Water, 67, 87 
Building of the House, 56 
Bullock Trains, 91 



Burma, Trade with, 90 
Border War, 98-100 

Caravans, Haw, 89 

Laos, 90 
Carving, Laos, 62 
Caswell, Rev. Jesse, 108 
Cheek, Marion, M. D., 116, 

146 
Chieng Dao, 130 
Chieng Mai, no, in, 128, 130 
Chieng Rai, 99, 115, 120, 131 
Chieng Saan, 99, 115 
Children, 27, 58, 67, 87 
Chinese Laos, 13, 17, 123 
Christ and the Demons, 46 
Christian Literature, in, 161 
Circumstances That Have 

Helped, 174 
Courtship, Laos, 23 

Dacoity, 98, 99 
Daughters Welcomed, 28 
Demons, Chapter IV 
Difficulties, 175 
Divorce Causes, 25 

Famine and, 26 

Prevalence of, 25 
Doctor Keo, 141-143 
Education, Buddhism and, 

33 

See Schools 
Elder La, Teacher, 169, 170 
Elephants at Work, 75 

Of Siam, 76 

Rogue, 77 

Ship of the Forest, 95 

The Prince's, 7S 

Wild, 76 



197 



igS 



Index 



Equipment of Hospitals, 145 
Exports, 92-94 

Face of the Land, Chapter 

VII 
Fair Laos, 80 
Famine, 119 

And Divorce, 26 
Feasts, 57, 70, 117, 118 
Fleeson, Miss K, 136, 158 
Flowers, 82 
Forests, Work in, 74 

Beauty of, 82 

First Temples, 84 

Trees of, 83-85 

Gardens, Vegetable, 72 

Nature's Own, 81 
Gospel, Coming of. Chapter 

Government, Chapter IX 

Harvest, 69, 70 
Harvest Festivals, 70 
Hill Tribes, The, 14, 16, 74 
Homes, 23^ 58, 59 
Home Industries, 53 
Hospitals and Healing, Chap- 
ter XII 
Houses, 23, 56, 58 
House-Raising, 57 

Imports, 91-93 
Indian Gods, 35 
Ingenuity, Mechanical, 55 
Irrigation, 66, 67 

Jams, Log, 75 

"Jesus Man,'* The, 142 

Kham Ai, Pastor, 169 
Kroo Nan Ta, 117 

Lacquer Ware, 61 
Lakawn Station, 118, 147 
Laos Alphabet, 32 



Laos, The, Are They Malay 
or Mongolian? 22 
Are They Lazy? 102 
B. A. and M. A., 33 
Captives in Siam, 109 
Carving and Sculpture, 62 
Characters of, iii 
Conventions, 117, 118 
Debt to Buddhism, 41 
Extent of, 16 
Homes, 23, 58, 59 
Houses, 23, 56, 58 
House-Raising, 57 
In China, 13 
Ingenuity, 55 
Literature, 34 
Language vs. Siamese, tio 
Mission, Opening of, no 
Minstrelsy, 34 
Numbers of, 17 
Origin of Name, 16 
Race Inheritance of, 22 
Reasons for Interest in, 18 
Silverware, 61 
Success of Missions, 19 

115, 173 
Type for, in 
Lepers, 148-150 
Looms, 54 

Malaria and Smallpox, 139 

Marriage, 24 

Martyrs, 113 

McGilvary, Daniel, D. D., 9, 
107, 109, no, 112, 113, 
115, 121, 122, 139 

McKean, J. W., M. D., 9, 77, 
141 

Medical Work, Chapter XII 

"Meeung," 57, 91, 94 

Me Ping Rapids, 42, 95 

Merit-Making, 37 

Messianic Hope (See Bud- 
dhism) 

Methods That Have Helped, 
174 



Index 



199 



Misgovernmient, 98, loi 
Missions in Siam 

Beginnings of, 107 

And Social Progress, 108 
Mission Work, Aim of, 163 
Missionary Opportunity of. 

Monkeys and Apes, 87 
Monks, Buddhist Vows of, 33 

Begging of, 31 
Moral Law, 38, 39 
Muang Pao, 130 

Nan Pan, Evangelist, 170 
Nan Station, 120, 158 
Native Church, The, Chapter 
XIV 
Convention of, 167 
Growth of, Early, 163 
Growth of, Since 1894, 

165 
Leaders of, 169 
Needs of, 166 
Result of Change in 1894, 

164 
Self-Propagation in, 167 
Self-Support in, 166 
Situation in 1894, 164 
Needs of Mission, 177, 178 

Opportunities, Open Doors, 

173 
Outlook, 176 
Out-stations, 124, 130 

Pali, 15 

Peoples, S. C, D. D., 118, 

119, 120 
Persecution, 113 
Planting Rice, 68 
Plowing, 67 
Population, Laos, 17 

Dense, 80 

Sparse, 81 
Ponies, 96 
Po Tree, Sacred, 85 



Pre Station, 119 
Presbyterian Church, 

Responsibility of, 10, 18, 
123 
Press, Beginning of, lii 

Work of, 160 
Prince and Peasant, 47 
Prosperity, Signs of, 58 
Pun, Elder, ("Crazy"), 140 

Regime, The Old, 102 
Religious Liberty, Proclama- 
tion of, 114 
Rice, 65-73 
Rice and Teak, 65 
Rice Pounders, The, 73 

San Ya We Chai, 115 
Schools, Chapter XIII 

At Chieng Mai, 156 

At Lakawn, 158 

At Nan, 159 

Bible Training, 159 

Boarding, 155 

Constituency of, 151 

Future of, 155 

Government, 153 

Problems of, 152 

Village, 152 

Tigers, 86 
Tobacco, Use of, 57 
Touring and Teaching, Chap- 
ter XI 
Tours, Long, 112 
Touring, Aim of, 124 

By Ladies, 136 

In the Wet Season, 132 

Season, 127 

Two Phases of, 127 
Trade, Cross Country, 92 

Routes, 89 

Women and, 30 
Trade and Travel, Chapter 

VIII 
Transmigration, 36 



aoo Index 

Varrirontioo, 112; I2£^ ij-i '^^:z:':.:tizz^ r-rnr^^Worsl^ 

Yxasssmrs, T44. -" ::f- ... 

ViDageSy Laost, 5f 
YnxMnan, C W^ IL D^ ;: ? 

WeaTin& 54 

Western Sfeaass. i* .~- '- 

Wwtas C-- Cirne : 

M3, 109 : :_ 

Wilsan. J: II: i :: 

UT; i;: ::. r:. :; . 



NIO 



AN OKIENTAl 
LAND OF THE FREE 

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KEY. J. H. FREEHON 




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